Havoc: Preview

     Yeun Menchin doesn’t look evil, but he must be. I wouldn’t be here to kill him if he wasn’t. 

     I twist the knife between my fingers, finding comfort in the familiar hilt, polished smooth with wear. There used to be a stone embedded at the pommel, but it fell out long ago, so now there’s only the mirror-finish of the casing that used to hold the ornament. I will receive a new stone when my tattoos breach the boundary between my hand and my wrists, marking a turning point in the number of lives I’ve taken for the Dark Mother of the Void. One black ink swirl for each life, a map of sacrament. 

     Menchin is all that stands between me and a worthy gem bedecking my blade. 

     It’s silly to care about something like that. As if a bauble makes a difference. And it doesn’t make a difference…to me. 

     It makes a huge difference to Mother Achlys and Father Liu, and to the other acolytes who all believe that I am too soft for my own good. I don’t know how they think I’m soft when I have more successful kills, more dark ink on my skin, than anyone else my age. 

     I am, at the very least, sympathetically hostile. 

     My coms unit pings with an incoming recording and I allow it to play Layla’s message. “Itzel, where are you? You were supposed to be back days ago. It’s almost time for the Festival of Night.”

     My best friend knows me well enough to offer the perfect bait for my return. I love the Festival of Night. For all the wrong reasons. The Festival of Night is the celebration of darkness. Glittering holographic fireworks and bonfires are left to burn until they extinguish naturally. The streets surrounding the monastery are illuminated with lanterns. For a few brief hours, the grounds glow with dancing light. It’s wild and vital and warm. 

     And then, one by one, the lights burn out. That’s supposed to be the good part. The triumph of the black. What I love is the time before, when stark shadows are thrown by the dancing light—the Mother living in conjunction with light, not opposed to it. 

     The very fact that she collects souls implies to me that she desires warmth as much as I do. It’s the same reason I study biology—because death and life are intertwined, and I feel that I cannot deal one without understanding the other.

     “This one is proving tricky, I’ll be home soon.” I send the message to Layla, pushing to my feet with renewed conviction and sheathing my dagger. The delay isn’t truly because the mission is tricky; I have second thoughts. Because of how Menchin doesn’t seem evil. This message has been the perfect reminder that this task isn’t about me and my thoughts. It’s about acting upon my faith. 

     I’ll kill Menchin tonight and be off Suriel immediately after. There’s a transport that leaves town at what approximates for night on this planet, which rotates so slowly the sun will illuminate the solar panels of the Nakatomi labs for over a year straight before true night falls. The transport will put me down in the Chandra-occupied part of the planet and I should be able to leave invisibly from there.

     I edge around the vocal plains grass as I approach my target’s location, my hood pulled low to shield my eyes from the stark sunlight. That’s right, the grass is vocal. I don’t know what evolutionary oddity created it—and I’d love to find out—but the golden-tipped grass speaks. Not in any language, more like the babbling of a small child. 

     When wind rips through the lowlands, it squeals in glee. When rain falls, it murmurs sleepily or whines, little mouths where leaf turns to stem twisting as the water rolls down their verdant tongues. 

     The dark shade of the general store is a balm to my overheated skin, and I slip inside with relief. Each border-planet general store has its own weird claim-to-fame product. Painted cups with local mottos, multitools with tips that are only useful for on-planet hardware, taffy made with whatever sweet product grows in their soil. They always claim it’s the best of its kind in charted territory—usually because it’s the only one of its kind. 

     On the Suriel lab complex, it’s a pickled tuber that grows deep in the desert earth. I think pickling is the only way to make the starchy thing edible. The lights of the store remain on after closing time and, when I sneak in, I note that one of the brine barrels is running low. I follow the sound of voices to the back of the store and prop my ear against the closed door at the end of the hall. 

     “…Explosions this work can trigger are less catastrophic on a planet than on a station. You’ve been physically assigned to Suriel because the Nakatomi Family believes it is cheaper to be here than to implement the basic safety measures required for a space station.” This voice is unfamiliar, but it has an air of authority to it. 

     “They had us drilling directly into the side of the reactor!” a female voice pipes up, this one familiar. It’s Sally Jessop, one of Menchin’s close colleagues in the Nakatomi labs. A loud crunch punctuates her statement, and the tangy scent of tuber pickles punches its way through the door alongside her smacking bites. “When I stopped the team and asked what safety measures were in place, they shrugged and said that Leadership gave the order.”

     A snort at that and Menchin’s voice finally sounds. He’s sitting close to the door. “Leadership. As though we should follow due to their inherent talent of being born to the right parents. I, for one, am tired of being a follower.” Another snap. More chomping. “Edgar, these pickles are your best yet.”

     A chorus of agreement. More munching sounds. Everyone is having an excellent time. Pickles and insurrection, the perfect combo. This may seem like a normal workplace dispute, but in Nakatomi territory a person follows Family orders or immigrates to a warmer, fuzzier planet. If they want the protection of the Family, they relinquish the right to push back. 

     “We deserve risk mitigation for ourselves, not just for our products,” Sally picks up. “And we deserve assurances that our families will be taken care of if that mitigation fails.”

     I lean against the rough-timbered wood paneling of the hall, popping blades in and out of my wrist sheaths with nervous energy, my favored blade with the empty pommel securely housed in its sheath on my thigh. Outside, the grass grumbles. Inside, my mind does.

     The thing of it is, they’re right. Maybe not about the pickles, but about everything else. Nakatomi’s protection is important, but people shouldn’t be forced to do unsafe things if there are ways to make it safe. Everyone here is barely on the breathing side of abject poverty. This unrest isn’t the result of kickbacks or being paid off by some outside influence, it’s homegrown the natural way. 

     We must have made a mistake. Overlooked how dire their situation is. The Dark Mother wouldn’t want Menchin taken before his time if he’s trying to defend basic human rights. 

     Light flashes outside the front window. A flicker in my peripheral vision. There and then gone again. I ghost through the store, reaching the door just in time for a soldier wearing full Nakatomi armor, blaster up and aimed, to burst through the it. Two others crowd behind him. A small kill-squad. 

Nakatomi is trying to shut this down on their own. 

     A switch flips in my head, instinct and training taking over. I grab the barrel of the first soldier’s blaster, shoving it to the side and twisting it from unsuspecting fingers as one of my wrist daggers finds its way through the weak spot of his armor at the neck. A quick jab, in and out, and I dance out of the way as the other two soldiers shove their way into the store. I kick the pickle bucket at one to slow her down. It topples, slopping wet tubers and tangy brine all over the floor of the shop. The soldier slips and falls face-first into the barrel. 

     Hah. How embarrassing for her. In the back meeting room, the voices cut out. 

     The other soldier telegraphs his strategy, an interplay of muscle that forecasts every move an instant before he makes it. A blaster swings in my direction but it’s a distraction as the soldier pulls a tase-wand from his belt with his free hand and jabs it at me sharply. I cup my stomach back as I cartwheel to the side, kicking the blaster out of the way as I pass. I slash at his ankle with my wrist blade while I’m mid-tumble, knocking him down to one knee before spinning to my feet and puncturing his throat with the same move that worked on the first soldier. 

     I roll behind a counter, tracking the remaining pickle-bathed soldier by scent. She curses as she stumbles forward, powering up her blaster. A scrape of metal on wood as she picks one of her fallen comrades’ weapons from the floor. When it was the three of them, their orders were probably to take out everyone in a shootout and then set the building on fire for plausible deniability. Now that she’s on her own, she must be doing the math, wondering how many of the people holed up in the room are armed. Wondering if they haven’t come out because they somehow haven’t heard this scuffle or if they’re lying in wait. 

     The obvious course of action for her is to overload the spare blaster until it becomes an overpriced grenade, huck it into the meeting room, and let that take out as many as possible. Which means that I must take care of her before she gets within throwing distance.

     The building isn’t that big. 

     The crack of the doorway opening—those fools taking the sudden silence for safety—makes my decision for me. I roll over the top of the counter, hit the floor, and lunge at the Nakatomi soldier, shoving her out through the front door and into the grass. The blaster she was overloading falls from her fingers, and I roll her away from it. The grass hollers as we crush it with our movement. She punches at my ear, and I dodge, continuing the roll until she’s between me and the blaster when it finally blows. 

     It pops, casing shrapnel flying in every direction and a burst of flame whoomphs out in a radius so wide it licks at my toes. 

     The grass screams. 

     I’m not used to treating grass like a sentient being. I’m not even sure it is sentient but anything that screams when it’s on fire isn’t exactly stupid. I shove away from the fallen Nakatomi woman, sprint back through the door, past cowering lab staff, and grab the biggest vessel of fluid I can find—one of the pickle barrels. 

     I can’t lift it. I can’t lift the barrel, and the grass is screaming and I killed a whole bunch of the wrong people, and I am in so much trouble I can’t think straight. The barrel shifts in my grasp and I jerk my focus from the hollering grass. A stranger is on the other side, helping me lift. I catch his dark eyes—a brief instant of understanding flashing wordlessly between us. 

     Between the two of us, we get the barrel out the door and dumped on the burning grass. No more screaming, now it’s whimpering piteously. Healthy grass droops comfortingly over the singed. I stand there awkwardly holding the barrel with the stranger, half drenched in pickle juice, as the insurrectionists finally exit the general store. 

     They look surprised, which they absolutely should not be. Planning rebellion makes enemies. 

     And so does failing to complete a mission. Panicked nerves clench the muscles at the small of my back. I didn’t just fail the mission. I specifically did the opposite of the mission. I killed three people who were not marked for death. I stole souls from the Mother. I meddled with affairs I didn’t fully understand on a whim because I decided that Menchin was sympathetic. 

     I am so drained—as in down the drain. 

     Rather than study the people I’ve seen for days as I cased out the lab, I take in the stranger on the other side of the barrel. He’s of moderate height, with a lean build, warm-toned brown skin, a thick shock of black hair, and a pointed jaw under a prominent nose—the whole effect is rather birdlike, as is the sharp intensity of his dark brown gaze. I know instantly that he does not belong here and that’s not because he’s the only one who isn’t clutching a pickle. 

     They all brought their pickles to the fight. They need so much help with the insurrection business. 

     I clear my throat and gently nudge a patch of singed grass upright with my foot, as though maybe if I clean up, they won’t notice all the dead bodies. 

     “They were faster than expected.” The stranger’s voice, addressing the others, is that same low authoritative tone that I heard first. It’s surprising in such a young face. He can’t be much older than I am. “Gather the bodies and take them to the lab. We can handle them there.” 

     They start fussing over the grass and loading the bodies in a hover barrow. 

     I take this as an opportunity to disappear. I’ve ruined everything and my only job now is to make it back to the Dark Mother’s monastery on Crixus and pay my dues without making a bigger mess. 

     It’s a short walk to the transport and I make it before launch. My credit chip gets me a semi-private room that opens onto a public hallway. 

The ship shakes as it launches, just in time for my own nervous system to give out and start shaking too. Always the nerves after. Always the weakness. Fingers trembling, I activate the power on my datapad. I need a distraction. I need something or I’ll drown in a pool of what-if and what-next. The noise of the cartoon playing on my datapad helps to distract from the cold silence that comes after a kill. 

     It never occurs to me to not go home. To cut and run. Not because of fear of who they’d send after me—and they would send someone after me—but for the simplest reason of all. Faith. I betrayed a desire of the Mother. I made a choice. 

     I deserve the consequences. 

     The end credits are rolling, and my hands have finally stopped shaking when I feel someone watching me. I angle the screen until I capture his reflection. The stranger. On the transport ship, which proves my hunch that he’s not from the lab town. Watching me through the open doorway, which I don’t love because I’m supposed to slough off attention like a second skin, not attract it.

     “What are you looking at?” I blurt the question before my better self chooses something properly opaque or dull. 

     “Are you, a grown woman, watching a cartoon intended for children?” He steps into my room as though he was invited, which, I suppose, he sort of was. I started the conversation, after all.

     “Right now, I’m watching a grown man who was watching a grown woman watching a cartoon intended for children. So, which of us is creepier? My credits are on you.” I don’t have any more credits, it just sounds like a good thing to say. “There’s nothing wrong with watching cartoons. They make me feel sunny.”

     He stares like I’m a foreign species and he’s not sure if I’m going to snap at him. 

     My mouth twists in a smile. It’s sadder than I mean it to be. To him, this night was probably a victory. To me it was exactly the opposite. “I hardly ever bite.”

     “I imagine it makes you feel less than…sunny…to bite.” He slides into the chair across from me, so close that our knees braid together. Still not afraid. I still can’t tell if it’s confidence or callowness. 

     I nod and he smiles back. He has nice lips. They look soft. The only soft thing on a face that’s all angles. His hands are nice too. Slightly larger than they should be with articulate fingers. The wrists above them are stronger than his frame indicates. I reassess his age. He isn’t older than I am. He might even be a year or so younger. Barely an adult and maybe not fully grown, no matter our banter. 

     “Why were you watching me?” I might be staring. There’s something about him that intrigues me. Maybe because he isn’t afraid. Maybe because he was trying to motivate those people. Maybe because he helped me spare the grass. 

     He leans forward, elbows on his knees and a spark in his gaze. “Because you’re fascinating. I’ve never met an assassin before, but I don’t think they’re supposed to want to feel sunny.”

     I shouldn’t want to be fascinating, but I like it through his eyes. They’re bright as distilled lyssup and maybe almost as intoxicating. No one has ever looked at me like this before. It doesn’t escape me that he calls me an assassin. Perhaps a lucky guess based on context cues—all that killing was a dead giveaway. Pun intended. The markings of my order are not a give-away. The only people who see them in conjunction with our missions do not linger to tell tales. “If you’ve never met one of us before, I think it’s rather rude to make assumptions. Perhaps we all wear flowers in our hair and dance under the noonday sun.”

     “You don’t have any hair.” He bites one of those full lips, like he’s trying to pinch back his smile. His face is so close I can count his eyelashes. 

I grin. “No. I don’t. More room for flowers.”

     “I want to know everything about you.” There’s a sort of soft, curious urgency in his voice. It sends a thrill of excited fear through me.

     I may enjoy being seen, but I can’t be known. I don’t want this moment to end, though, so rather than put him off, I close the thin space between us and run my lips over his. He doesn’t bolt screaming from my room, so I take that for consent to deepen the kiss, tangling my fingers in his overgrown hair. He tentatively traces his palm up my back, floundering for a moment when he hits the hood of my vestments. After a few fumbles, he slides his fingers beneath the hood, tracing fiery trails over the sensitive skin behind my ear.

     I breathe in a gasp, and he takes the opportunity to slip his tongue between my lips. If the cartoons make me feel like the sun is shining on my skin, this makes me feel like I’m only a hand’s breadth from its surface, burning with it. It’s all going quite well until the lights flash green and the intercom alerts us that we’ve reached our destination. So quickly. Too quickly. 

     I sit back, tracing my starkly tattooed fingers down the side of his neck. 

     Time to go our separate ways. 

     “Goodbye, stranger.” I whisper it, pressing one more quick kiss to his nose with a tiny smile. Taking one last sliver of warmth to remember, to hold close during whatever comes next. 

     He grasps my hand with a light grip, not a cage—an anchor, if I want one. “Goodbye, flower girl.”

     I break free and, unanchored, return home to Crixus.

Havoc is available 11 August, 2026.

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