A SIDE-DISH OF ASSASSINATION

"I got us a job, Girlsies!" Morgan Dannon waltzed into the room, waving some papers. "A few each, actually." Her cousins both looked up with wide grins. "And one for Angel."

"Krazy Kat's not going to like that," Kayssandra commented, taking her assignment papers from Morgan.

"No importa," Sophia snorted, taking her own assignments and scanning the pages.

"Besides, it's nothing dangerous. She can't complain." She sat down cross-legged in the air, reading her own lists.

"Sit on a chair, like a normal person, Sorrow. That floating trick is annoying and probably tiring for you."

"Shut up," the dark-haired cousin retorted. "Everyone else has the same slavers? Mayfly, registered to some dude named Kotoran?"

"Yup, it's the regular deal, I guess. Queenie does away with some big-shots in a gruesome fashion, then if they don't scare I start snipping away at their numbers discreetly, telling them that we're around and watching, and if they still don't shut down, you take them for a long walk off a short pier. Except that this time Angel gets to help Queenie."

"Si. But I don't think you two are going to be needed." Sophia shuddered a bit. Kayssandra raised an eyebrow.

"Why not?"

"Because death by electrocution may be spectacular, but the things Katia's Angel can think up and do are horrific. I think that they'd rather go legit or even be killed by any one of us than facing the possibility of him." There were nods all around.

"He's pretty screwed up," the redhead agreed.

"Who is?" Katia had just entered the room, Gellan trailing behind her like a beaten puppy as usual.

"Angel. She's right, you know. He's not exactly well in the head. Are you, kid?" He shook his head, settling down at Katia's feet as she sat down on the comfortable red couch. She sighed, patting the seat next to her. He shook his head.

"Massage. An' play wi' my 'air." She smiled, running her fingers through his hair.

"Ok, so he's not completely sane. But how sane are the rest of us?" Gellan had a contented look on his face.

"Point, even if we aren't that far gone. Hey kid, job for you." Morgan handed him his paper. He laboured over it a while until Katia took it and read it to him. "Assignment of assassination. Gellan "Angel" working under Kayssandra N. I. Dannon, "Princess". Commissioned to kill Mr. Horatio Abernak, slaver working on the Mayfly. Use your creativity. Pay: 20 credits for a confirmed kill, plus one fifth (50 credits) of the bonus pay if the entire operation is shut down. Company cut is 5 (1 credit) on kill fee." She was frowning.

" 'Use your creativity' means imagine that they hurt Katia," Morgan teased. Gellan was already nodding.

"And says here on my paper that we leave tomorrow. Harasho?"

"Harasho." Katia reached down and Gellan crawled into her lap for a cuddle.

The ship was scarcely big enough for the three assassins. It was a good thing that Gellan had decided to infiltrate the slaves or they wouldn't have even had time to breathe. The contraption was another invention of Shannon's, combined with Cloelia's ideas. Much like Cloelia's beloved drones, the module would latch onto a ship and hide where it was. Its programming made the ship think it was part of the hull. The rest was Shannon's brainchild. Integrating itself to the hull, the module slowly teased the actual hull open. Its outer wall, actually a door, then integrated the ship's hull to itself, creating a new protrusion in the ship, linked by a door. Inside, it looked as if nothing had changed. This way, the three girls had a nice, safe place to stay while they wreaked havoc.

There was a scream. Then blessed silence. "Mack? Mack?" The second in command of the slaver ship Mayfly turned around, looking for the captain. He turned just in time to see him struck once more by what looked like lightning. In the charred man's hand was a little copper signature plate. That was what the electricity had hit first. The man teased it out of the dead captain's hands, reading it. "Queenie, IMC." Was neatly engraved. IMC. Iriza Mercenary Corporation. The bane of slavers, prized by Interplanetary Security for their persistence and effectiveness for catching and destroying such illegal operations. The man gulped.

He was even more terrified when the body of the chief jailor was found. It was mangled almost beyond recognition. Only the head had been left mostly intact, missing only ears and tongue. These appendages were balanced on his head, strung together on a red ribbon. On the man's forehead was carved a crude angel and the initials IMC. He left the room to gracelessly lose his lunch.

It was the thrill of the hunt that she missed the most. The young Shapeshifter slunk into the guardroom. She grinned as she observed their antics Gellan's kill had obviously shaken them hard. She marked a few stragglers, noting which men would be the least or the most missed. She followed the new captain of the guard, so sure of himself as he swaggered alone down a corridor, a huge gun in one hand. His assurance seemed to melt away when she began to make sure he knew someone was there, never showing herself. He turned around, raising his gun to fire. She Shifted and inched out of the shadows in the form of an ant. He never saw her. Not even when the tiny black speck became a viper. He only realized she was there when a pair of deadly fangs sunk into his ankle once, twice and again. A redheaded young woman stood over him as he died, grinning. When he was dead, she dropped a handwritten note down onto the body. "Princess, IMC".

"There are at least three IMC assassins on board," the commander shouted. "With those kind of numbers, they shouldn't be that hard to find!"

"Boss, the men are terrified," the newest head jailor, the fifth so far, was trying to talk some sense into the commander. " 'Queenie' killed two, 'Angel' got one," there were shudders at the memory, "and 'Princess' so far has killed three. We've just received another message from the IMC. Crypted, of course, so we can't track it. They've asked us to give up. They've asked us to give up. Their bounty only specifies that the slaves have to survive. It doesn't say anything about our survival."

"Then kill the slaves! We lose the cargo anyway. They'll lose interest if we have no cargo."

"Sir, with all due respect, if the assassins are already on board, I don't thing that they'll give up over lost cargo. They want to shut this operation down."

"And if they kill us, they won't get the information as to the whereabouts of our headquarters, our other ships, our hunters…"

"But they'll get a captured ship with condemning information in its computers and the ability to use our ID to get through headquarters. Besides, even if we purged the computers, deleted the codes and slunk off with our tails between our legs, they have hackers so good they could get the ship to cough up every last place that we've been to, resuscitate data we thought gone for good and forge the codes. And even if they couldn't do that, they have a necromancer good enough to wring the information from our mutilated corpses! To put it bluntly, sir, we're screwed six ways to Sunday. If we give up, we get jail time. Maybe fines and hard labour. If we don't, the IMC's going to butcher every last son of a bitch currently left alive here and it ain't gonna be pretty." The commander seemed to consider this. He sighed.

"Fine, then. Call them. Tell them that we surrender."

"Unnecessary." A tall woman was standing in the doorway. "You're all under arrest and I'm taking the ship to the nearest IS base." The commander drew a pistol, pointing it at her.

"I'm the IMC's Princess. Sorrow? Dame." The spanish order was heeded. The gun flew out of the man's hand, floating carelessly in front of the assassin. "Now I'm going to march you to your cells where you'll await IS justice. Anyone who resists will be given to Angel." She was bluffing about the last part, of course. Gellan would have no further part in the venture. Morgan would stick troublemakers to the ceiling for a while and maybe knock them around a bit, but the less death, the higher the pay. The others would keep hidden. It wasn't bright for an assassin to reveal who she really was. Kayssandra, her face Shifted beyond recognition was the only one who could do that with impunity.

"So then I…"

"Kayssandra, please!" Shannon's hands were clapped over her ears. "We're eating!" Beside her, Lute Raknar, one of her bodyguards, patted her shoulder sympathetically. Unlike his employer, he didn't look in the least disgusted. He was, however, shooting her other bodyguard evil looks.

"I noticed," the redhead grinned. "It was bloody, it was gory, I--" She was cut off by the aforementioned other bodyguard, Termaechalus Ithgriff, who simply got up, reached across the table and lifted her out of her chair by the collar. She squawked and shifted to get away. "Ok, ok, I get the picture. I'll shut up now." Laughter coursed up and down the table. Shannon glowered at her little sister.

"Sorry, but I don't like having a side-dish of assassination with my meal."