TIMESLIDE

Stephanie Bedwell-Grime

CHAPTER ONE: FROM WARRIOR TO PIRATE

We were losing the war.

That much was obvious. We could see our fate in the battered equipment that fell apart beneath our fingertips. We were so desperate for parts, we'd taken to scavenging our own craft just to keep a few ships in the air. The army could barely feed us. We were down to one lukewarm, watery meal a day and our uniforms were ripped and worn beyond recognition. We stole the boots off our fallen comrades rather than freeze to death in what had to be the most desolate hell hole in the galaxy.

Gamma 6 was cold, so cold it defied definition. Even the air you thought was safe to breathe froze in your throat before the heating systems in the ships kicked in. The most sophisticated equipment was rendered useless by the penetrating ice. We were so thoroughly chilled I swore I would never be warm again. The only thing that helped us forget the demoralizing frost was alcohol. We drank with hopeless abandon, booze being the only supply we had an abundance of.

So there we were, the most bedraggled, filthy lot to ever call themselves an army, drinking with determined grimness, the night before the battle that would decide our fate.

I was drunk, and I didn't care if the troops saw it. Salvation was impossible at this point, fighting a mere formality.

In a prophetic drunken haze, I wondered what the Malvarians would do with us: line us up and shoot us, or simply raze the planet and forget about us until the radiation died down enough to re-colonize.

I was sure they would want me, however. For, if not virtuous, I was very good at my job. As Captain of the Strike Force, I had caused the Malvarians a lot of grief.

It was our task to locate strategic Malvarian bases, sneak up on them, and create a diversion while the Tallusian air force attacked. Our function wasn't to win a battle, or even to fight fair. It was to cause as much pain as possible. We pillaged. We plundered. We did as we were told. Most of us were too young to have ever known peace. War was our life.

And now we were about to pay dearly for Tallus' commitment to that war. I had visions of my head impaled on a stake outside the Malvarian capital. Actually, I'd be lucky if they finished me off that quickly.

I was long past the point of being able to walk without assistance, so I stayed, drinking out of reflex. The world was sliding this way and that and everything was blurry.

I watched a big, black smudge move towards me, lowering itself to the seat in front of me, and finally taking the shape of a man.

He was young, handsome, with very dark hair and piercing green, almond-shaped eyes. A long scar ran down his right cheek. It crinkled when he smiled. He was dressed in black civvies. He wasn't a warrior then. At another time I would have been interested, but on that night, he was just a barrier between me and the demise I'd already reconciled myself to.

"Hi soldier," he said as I lifted my head from the table to size him up. He looked at the faded insignia on my flight suit. "I should say Captain. Captain...?"

"Keller," I said. "Moraina Keller." I let my head sink back down onto the table. "Leave me alone."

"Actually, Captain Moraina Keller," he said. "I have an offer to make you."

"I'm not interested," I said. "And it doesn't matter anyway. In a few short hours I'm going to be dead. That is, if I can sober up long enough to assemble my troops."

He laid his head on the table beside mine, looking me in my bloodshot eyes.

"Now Captain Keller that would be a great waste. As it happens, I have a use for a trained killer, and I'm willing to pay very well."

The world was swaying again. He had two noses. I propped my aching head up on my hands and blinked, bringing him back into focus.

"Who in all the hells are you, anyway?"

"Harrison Kong, The Third," he answered smiling, offering his hand.

I left his hand hanging there in mid air. "Don't you have anything better to do, Mr. Kong?"

"No," he answered, losing the self assured grin for just a second. "I need a trained killer. For my own protection."

"You want me to desert the army to be your bodyguard?" I asked incredulously.

"It's hardly a promotion," he said. "But it's better than being dead. And there's money in it. Lots and lots of money."

"Money?" I mused, realizing I had no idea what to do with money anymore. "Go away," I said, and passed out.

* * * *

I expected my loyal troops to haul me back to base in time for the battle, but it seems they were too drunk or too involved in their own pain to notice Harry as he tossed me over his shoulder and carted me out the door.

I awoke with a blinding headache. My first thought was that I was dead, and it was all over. But, I wasn't dead. I was in the cabin of a very sleek, expensive little ship, sleeping on the finest Valderaan silk sheets.

Vague memories drifted through my consciousness, sweaty bodies entwined on those pricey sheets, my own raw shouts of pleasure echoing through the cabin. Oh no, I thought with a pang of keen embarrassment, I hadn't done those things, had I? Were those acrobatics even possible? I stretched experimentally and realized I ached in unusual places.

It was all coming back to me now....

The movement had roused me and I came to in the cabin of Harry's ship. If he'd been a gentleman he would have offered me some stim, gotten me sober enough to walk and shipped me back to the barracks. But Harry was no gentleman. And the truth is I'm no lady, either.

Bleary-eyed as I was, Harry was beginning to look good. And another few glasses of Malvarian whiskey made him look even better. Like all Tallusians, I hated the Malvarians. We'd been at war for generations, but I had to admit, they sure could make whiskey. I shouldn't have been able to pour any more of it into my liquor-saturated body, but it went down like smooth fire. Surprisingly it perked me up a little. Maybe Harry had mixed some stim in with it after all. I was too drunk to care. It had been a long time since I'd been with a man, a long time since I'd thought of love or romance or anything beyond the next battle and whether I'd live to see another day.

What the heck, I thought. The night was young. I was good and drunk and not likely to live to see the next sunset. Why not?

Honestly, I should have lingered on that why not a little longer.

Still, I was sick to death of being strong and in charge, sick of trying to do the right thing. I wanted to live. I wanted to feel anything other than terror and dogged determination for a change. So I allowed Harry to pour me yet another whiskey. I allowed him to kiss me. I allowed him to lead me toward the spacious bunk in his well-appointed cabin. I allowed him to peel my flight suit from my shoulders and reveled in the feel of those hot, hungry lips as they dipped lower.

His tight jacket was difficult to undo. Or maybe it was just the extent of my drunkenness, because he covered my hands with his and helped me undo the metal clasps and toss his jacket aside. His loose shirt tumbled to the deck after it.

I hadn't dressed for this, came the muddy thought. Not that I owned any nice under things anymore. Best to get the clothes off quickly. Strange how drunken logic works. He didn't seem to notice or care.

As we tumbled to the bunk together, I stopped worrying and stopped caring, as well.

Skin to skin, I reveled in the feel of his taut warm body against mine. Yes, I thought. Tomorrow I might be dead. Would probably be dead, I corrected. Tonight I would claim as my own.

I angled my hips, taking him deep inside, marveling at how this stranger felt so right. I clung to him as we moved together and ignored the creaking of the bunk beneath us. Desire gathered and built, demanding release. As if from far away, I heard my cries of pleasure, followed swiftly by Harry's.

We collapsed together, spent and sweaty. Exhaustion caught up with me finally, and I remembered nothing more.

Until now....

Warrior instincts kicked in. Memory flooded back into my consciousness. I sat up, banging my head on the unexpectedly low ceiling. I felt for my gun. It was missing. Sure enough, so were all my clothes.

"Morning," Harry said, poking his smiling face into the cabin. He tossed me my flight suit. It was clean.

"Where am I?" I demanded, though I already knew the answer.

"On my ship, of course," Harry answered cheerfully. "Do you like it?"

"Look," I said. "I don't know what happened between us, but I've got a battle to fight." Truth was I remembered exactly what had happened between us and so did he. He ignored my lie.

"Forget it. You lost. Tallus is on its way to oblivion, and we're very far away from the battle. So you might as well take it easy."

I suddenly realized what that rumbling under my feet was. We were moving at light speed, had been since last night.

"You kidnapped me?" I asked incredulously. "I ought to kill you."

Harry held up my missing gun.

"Oh," I said sweetly. "I don't need the gun. The first thing they teach you in the military is one hundred ways to kill a man with your bare hands. And I've had lots of practice."

"You could be a little more grateful." Harry pouted.

"Grateful? For what?"

"For saving your life."

"I didn't want you to save my life," I said. "I'm supposed to be dead. Everyone else I know is. It was only a matter of time, anyway."

"And you never thought of using your talents for anything but fighting a war your ancestors got you into?" Harry asked.

"Talents?" I scoffed. "My talent is killing. It's the only one I have."

"Fine," he said. "I'm hiring you for your talent at killing."

"You're a fool." I told him. "This is a very small ship to be confined in the company of a trained assassin."

"I'm not afraid of you."

"You ought to be," I warned him.

"Perhaps," he said. "But I have one thing you need very badly right now."

"Really," I said. "And what might that be?"

He held up a tiny vacuum package. "Pain killers."

I rubbed my pounding temples, a sly smile creeping across my face. I held out my hand.

"Not so fast," Harry warned. "First I want your word I won't feel your knife in my back the minute it's turned."

"You have my knife." I pointed to the blade lodged in his belt.

"Nevertheless, this is a small ship, and I have no doubt about your abilities."

I looked again at the painkillers in his hand. "You drive a hard bargain, Mr. Kong."

He took this as a compliment. "Call me Harry," he said, smiling. "Well, what do you say?"

"All right, I assured him. "I promise I won't kill you, today," I really wasn't in any condition to do more than hold my aching head and moan, but I neglected to mention that.

He tossed me the package. "Fine," he said. "We'll have to talk about tomorrow."

"We'll have to talk," I said, "about a lot of things."

* * * *

Harry both intrigued and infuriated me. He was rich, heir to the wealthy Kong Dynasty, born into the good life, every privilege his for the asking, and the maddening conviction that things would always be that way. And yet he squandered his inheritance, choosing to make his money from ill-gotten means that amounted mostly to piracy. He was wasteful, disrespectful, rude, generous, handsome, and charming. He drove me crazy. Most of the time I fluctuated between wanting to strangle him and wanting to kiss him. I should have left him, but I had no where to go. The life Harry offered me was better than the alternatives.

So, I stayed. I found I was not badly suited to piracy after all.

* * * *

"How about that guy over there?" Harry asked months later, staring across the crowded bar in search of an easy victim.

I shook my head. "No money."

"How do you know?"

"I've already tried to pick his pocket."

"How disappointing for you," Harry said, then, "So is that what you see in me? My money?"

What could I say? I'd gone from expecting to be dead to living in relative luxury. To say the money didn't matter would be lying. "In the beginning," I admitted. My smile widened, if Harry wanted honestly, I'd give it to him. "But then I realized I was going to have to hang around if I wanted a share of your galactic credit allowance. You see, I really didn't believe you were a rich man, just a lucky pirate."

"A pleasant surprise for you."

"A surprise yes, I can't remember the last time you were pleasant."

Harry grinned, a disconcerting gesture. "No money in being pleasant," he said.

I drained my drink. "Well, seeing as we're about to do something miserable, it's a choice between my friend with the light wallet, or that guy right there." I pointed to a large, mean looking hairy member of the Gemman race.

The Gemman in question had the barmaid up against the bar, quite obviously against her will. She loudly objected to the Gemman's manhandling, but he overpowered her easily. No one seemed inclined to come to her rescue. Hot and prickly anger rose inside me. No woman should be treated that way.

"Come on," Harry said. "I thought we were on holiday. I don't want to work too hard."

I sized up the murderous looking creature. "I could take him out," I said without bragging. "But it wouldn't be easy."

Harry eyed him critically. I could tell the scene at the bar angered him, as well. "What's he carrying?"

"Gemman rubies."

"What about the other guy?"

"Zubian laser guns and blasters."

Harry thought it over. "Gemman rubies would be a lot easier to unload. They'd bring a good price almost anywhere."

"True," I agreed. "And they don't have serial numbers."

"He's awfully big."

"Don't worry about it," I said. "Just be there to back me up."

You see, I'm a bit of an imposing creature myself, standing over six feet tall with short, jet-black hair, cold icy blue eyes--a warrior and a trained killer to boot. Really, the only difference between a warrior and a pirate is which side of the law you're on. There isn't much glory in being a pirate, but the pay is better. If you're any good that is."

"Well?" Harry said.

"Let's do it," I said.

The Gemman abandoned the barmaid in search of more willing fare, and we followed him from the cantina to the spaceport, where he disappeared into an equally miserable-looking ship.

"Rumor has it he's on his way to Dammos 4," I whispered to Harry. "No way am I going there!"

"It's a short run, a rather small investment of fuel on our part," he reasoned. "A large profit margin. All in all a cost-effective venture."

All of which was true. Still, I really didn't want to go to Dammos 4. Long story, that. "Okay, but we'll have to head him off before we get that close. I'm not straying anywhere near Dammian space. I'm sure they still have a price on my head."

Harry's eyes narrowed. Did he know about Dammos and all that had happened there? He said nothing, leaving me to wonder. We circled back to our own craft.

Harry's ship was a mean, sleek little thing. A joy cruiser, enhanced way past what the regulations allowed and specially modified for smuggling and villainy. It looked like a rich man's craft. And hardly anyone would suspect that a man as wealthy as Harry, especially one who had actually inherited his fortune, would have such a nasty hobby.

Over the cockpit radio I could hear our Gemman friend readying himself for takeoff.

Like two cats playing with a mouse, we allowed our victim a generous lead, then followed suit. It didn't take us long to find him. He was chugging quietly along, as if he had all the time in the universe, probably quite unaware that in a few short moments his cargo bays were going to be substantially lighter.

With a glance from Harry I threw the ship into overdrive and we matched our companion's velocity. For a few moments our hapless victim tried to evade us, but we were much faster than we looked and we pursued him effortlessly.

Predictably, his efforts failed, our meal ticket finally decided to hail us on the usual subspace frequency. Harry smiled as is his voice echoed through our cockpit.

"Cruiser to port side, state your intentions!" He demanded in heavily accented Galactic Standard. Poor fool.

I answered with a blast of laser fire, which sent the craft spinning off course. The sound of Gemman cursing filled the cockpit. Then silence.

Harry grinned.

"Too easy," I warned him. "We've only made him mad now."

We relocated our victim and closed in, guns ready. He waited quietly, trying to anticipate our next move.

Harry didn't keep him waiting. He fired a merciless bolt of lighting into Gemman's light drives.

"There," Harry said. "That ought to keep him quiet for a while. Satisfied?"

"Just be careful," I said.

We crept up beside him, surveying the damage Harry had done. Indeed, the cargo ship hung dead in space, most of its propulsion circuits destroyed.

"Okay, let's go," Harry said.

We released the docking tube, and with a few complimentary laser bolts, we managed to liberate the hatch. We waited a second, then burst inside.

A bolt of lightning and a Gemman curse exploded over Harry's head, narrowly missing him. I stepped in and disarmed the Gemman with a neatly aimed blaster round that knocked the weapon from his hand. I moved in and retrieved the gun.

"You take care of the rubies, Harry," I said. "I'll watch this one."

"Who are you?" the Gemman demanded in his own tongue.

"Your guardian angel," I replied sweetly. I stepped up to him, both blasters armed. I was big, but he towered over me and out muscled me by about 300 percent. I was beginning to regret this little escapade, but there was nothing to do but bluff my way through it. The alternatives weren't terribly appealing. "Now we can do this politely," I suggested, "and you get to keep your life. Or if you prefer, we can be nasty. In which case the deal is off."

The Gemman snarled and twitched almost imperceptibly. I reacted out of instinct before I saw the knife that was headed for my gut. With assassin's reflexes, I discharged my blaster, burning through his neck, through tendons and veins alike, in one stroke.

"The deal," I said, "is off."

The Gemman bubbled and oozed for a long time before he was quiet. I watched him intently, half expecting him to rise from the dead and try to stab me with another of his nasty little knives. But he remained quiet. Harry was busy emptying the Gemman's holds into our own. Still, something about this rather routine operation had me completely unnerved.

"Gods!" Harry hissed, coming up behind me unexpectedly and sending me automatically spinning into attack stance, blaster ready. "Did you have to make such a mess?"

"He was unreasonable," I said glumly, holstering my blaster.

"What's with you?" Harry asked, obviously pleased with the way things had gone.

"I don't know," I said. "Something's wrong. This should have been much more difficult."

Harry looked at the body on the deck. "That was easy?" he asked.

"Easier than it should have been," I said wiping the blood from my hands.

"Not everything in life has to be difficult, Moraina," Harry lectured. "You were in the military too long. You've forgotten about pleasure, gluttony, and greed."

"Well," I said, relaxing a little. "I have a good teacher..."

"Come on," Harry said, nodding towards the hatch. "Let's high tail it out of here and go count our loot."

"Sounds good," I said. I took one more backward look at the oozing lump on the floor and followed Harry home.

I poured myself a victory brandy, letting the comforts of home settle my nerves a bit. We were on autopilot cruising at a leisurely speed toward an out of the way port where we could refuel and find a place to dispose of a large haul of Gemman rubies. Harry had already consumed most of a bottle of brandy and seemed content to make drinking his evening's entertainment. I eyed him glumly, unable to shake the feeling that something, somehow, was wrong. It was hours later and still every hair on the back of my neck was standing on end. We were in danger. I knew it, even if Harry wouldn't believe me.

There he was, sprawled on the deck in the narrow cabin that served as our quarters, Harrison Kong III, heir to the mighty Kong dynasty, a man who had everything, except a purpose. It was a bizarre image, His Majesty, sitting on the floor, playing a drunken game of cards with himself and using piles of rubies to bet with. Shaking my head, I turned toward the galley.

Perhaps it was fitting after all.

CHAPTER TWO: HARRY

The excitement over, I slowly started to calm down. Life went on. Nothing portentous cropped up. Now, I'm no genius, but I thought things were going well. In retrospect that false confidence was the harbinger of disaster. I didn't expect disaster to arrive in the form of a hit on me, and I certainly wasn't expecting the source. Like most disasters, this one arrived in the middle of a perfectly good day.

I'm probably more accustomed to the idea of dying than most people, having been a career soldier, but my impending demise turned out to be a very big surprise.

I'd been out around the spaceport, picking up banal supplies for the galley and seeing to a fuel delivery for The Needle. Mission accomplished, I decided to check on Harry's progress with his own chores and put a call through the port system to the ship. Harry wasn't there. No special reason for concern, except that he'd been absent a lot lately. Said he was out doing pirate business. Suspicion raised the small hairs on the back of my neck, despite my attempts to dismiss Harry's departure as nothing unusual. I had no right to question him, really. Technically I worked for Harry. He owned my contract. That we'd been lovers complicated the situation. And, okay, I admit it was a stupid move, but I genuinely liked Harry. Now that I had some semblance of a life back, I wanted things to work out between us.

He couldn't be cheating on me already, could he? Did I really have the right to object if he was?

A sudden blow caught me by surprise. I ought to have seen it coming. Shock and months of ship living had made me soft. My Comm went flying off somewhere to my right. I heard it impact the pavement with a ting and followed by several other metallic pings as parts of it fell apart and hit the ground.

The bash over the head stunned me, so it was a moment before the pain came jabbing into my skull. I reeled backward, flailing, trying to hold on to anything that might keep me upright long enough to flee.

Another blow knocked me to the ground. Blinding pain absorbed all coherent thought as my brain hit the inside of my skull. Instinct took over and I scrambled back out of the way into the mountain of trash piled in the alleyway. The smell of refuse washed over me, making the nausea I felt even worse. I struck out with the only body part I could still make work, my foot. I heard a meaty thump followed by a groan, and I knew I'd hit my target.

Through blurry vision I saw my assailant cupping his wounded crotch. I knocked the blaster from his hand. It skittered across the cement with a grating sound. And while he was curled up in the trash, I floundered after it.

Still blinded by pain, I couldn't see worth a damn, but it didn't take much skill to hit someone point blank. So I shot him. It seemed only fair.

I leaned over the smoldering body and rummaged in his coat pocket until I found the smooth hard outline of his handheld. I turned it into the light. Not well protected, it took me only seconds to bypass his feeble attempt at security and access his messages. Sure enough, I found one last communication, listing me as his next target. Terrible picture of me, too.

Not as terrible as the hit's originator, however. I sucked in my breath and took a second look at the sender. Harry's picture leered out at me.

Sheer betrayal made my stomach clench and my breath stick in my throat. For a moment, I prayed desperately that there must be some terrible mistake. I took another look at the handheld. No, no mistake. Anger followed swiftly on the heels of betrayal. Blinding, white-hot anger.

"Two can play at this game," I muttered. Straightening my spine, I knew what I was going to have to do.

They say the first kill is the hardest, but I've found the reverse is true. Every one hurts like hell.

Now I was going to have to kill Harry, but how?

Mentally, I shuffled through the many ways I knew to kill a man. I imagined throttling him. I pictured flaying him alive, shooting him, stabbing him, boiling him in oil.

Of course, I did none of those things. I was, after all, a professional.

If I'd known what Harry was really in to, I would have done him in long ago. If I'd suspected him of planning a hit on me, I'd have been the one who struck first. I just hated being the loser. I hated being at a disadvantage.

I vowed no one would ever put me at a disadvantage again.

I planned to kill Harry at my earliest convenience. Question was, when to do it? Far as I knew, Harry had no idea I was on to him. Simplest solution--head back to the ship quietly, wait for his return, smile, pull my gun and shoot him. I liked the simplistic beauty of it. That left one detail that would probably haunt me until my dying day. Why? Why when he'd come looking for me, housed me, courted me, and bedded me did Harry suddenly want me dead?

What kind of idiot would put a hit out on a girlfriend who's an assassin?

I hadn't done anything to him. Far as I knew, I hadn't done anything to anger him. And okay, I know we were criminals ... but still, we were bound by the honor code of thieves. I hadn't done anything to Harry, so why the price on my head? I couldn't let him die until I knew.

I cleaned up as best I could in a dock-side bathroom. Not the place to clean anything really, I'd be lucky if I didn't come out dirtier than when I went in, but it had running water. Not clean water, exactly, but running nonetheless. I made myself presentable. If Harry didn't look too closely, he might not notice the blood on my black clothes. If he did, perhaps it would be too late.

I found him sitting in the galley, a half-finished bottle of Malvarian whiskey dangling from one hand. This I hadn't counted on, him being drunk. Lady luck had smiled.

"Mind if I have some?" I asked, sitting down in the seat opposite him.

His head wobbled on his neck as he nodded.

Not sure if that meant, sure have some, or if he minded that I had some, I reached for the bottle and poured myself a healthy shot. Harry swiped at the bottle, trying to reclaim it, and missed. Drunker was better, I decided. As long as he wasn't too drunk to talk. I pushed it back at him.

I pretended to drink from my glass while Harry finished off the rest of the bottle. He didn't seem to notice how little I'd drunk. Finally, finding the bottle empty, he staggered to his feet and placed a buddy-like arm around me. Oh no, I thought in horror. He couldn't be thinking of making a move on me when he was stinking drunk, could he? Harry never ceased to amaze. "Shall we?" he asked. At least that's what I thought he said. It came out more like 'Shhhl ee'.

I almost shoved him away in disgust, but then the scheming part of my brain took over. Let Harry think he was getting one last goodbye roll in the hay. He wouldn't be expecting what came next. So, I let him pull me drunkenly down the corridor to the captain's quarters.

Inside the narrow chamber, he almost fell upon me. We landed on the bed, him on top of me, still dressed, still wearing his blaster, I noted feeling the hard metal against my leg. At least I sincerely hoped that was his blaster. His head fell to my shoulder. He moved to lay a slobbering kiss on my lips.

I moved swiftly, wedging a knee between us and flipping him over onto his back. He still didn't get it. Thinking I was just getting frisky, he grinned lopsidedly up at me. I grinned back, reached down and drew his blaster.

Even when I had the barrel wedged under his chin, he still didn't get it.

"You weren't going to tell me, were you, you bastard?"

Only then did the smile fade from his face, replaced by his usual cunning look. I felt him tense, ready to throw me off.

"Don't do it, Harry. Move a muscle and I swear I'll blow your head off."

"Raina," he started to say, still pretending we were friends, and using the affectionate derivative of my name. "Whatever this is about...."

I shoved the barrel harder beneath his chin. "I can't believe you ordered a hit on me, you sniveling coward."

Genuine surprise crossed his face. For a moment, he seemed truly shocked. "But I didn't...."

"Of course you didn't," I answered. I hardly expected him to own up to it. After all, if he did, I'd shoot him. In an instant. I planned to shoot him anyway. First, though, I wanted information.

"Tell me why, Harry."

"I didn't order a hit on you," he insisted.

"Right." I rammed the gun harder still against his throat. "At this close range, I don't think there'll be much of you left to identify," I mused idly.

"Raina, please!"

"Please what, Harry?"

"I really don't know what you're talking about."

"Sure you don't." I glanced up, imagining how the blast might leave a scorch mark against the hull. "At this close range," I continued. "I reckon the blast will take out most of your head. That only leaves the rest of you to jettison in vacuum somewhere they'll be unlikely to find you for years."

To his credit, Harry looked really worried. I had to admire his acting ability. "Why do you think it was me?" he asked.

I couldn't believe he was asking for proof. "Oh, stop pretending. Since you're about to be dead, you might as well admit it."

"I swear, Riana, I didn't order a hit on you. What possible reason would I have to do such a thing?"

Damn him, he sounded sincere enough. Still pinning his arms to the bunk with my knees, I reached into my pocket with my other hand. "Move a muscle and you're a goner. I mean it."

He nodded as much as he could with the blaster barrel jammed under his chin.

I pulled out the assassin's handheld and raised it so Harry could see. "Looks enough like you, don't you think?" I tilted my head and studied it for a moment. "Though not your best side."

His eyes widened until I could see whites all around. "I know what it looks like, but that's not me."

"Oh, for the gods' sake!" The blaster whined, charging up. "Are you going to tell me why, Harry? Or do I have to shoot you and wonder until I die what I ever did to make you so angry?"

"You didn't do anything." His voice rose an octave.

"You just wanted to be rid of me because I know too much?" I guessed.

"No!"

"Then what?" With a fully-charged blaster, all I had do was pull the trigger and this problem would vanish forever, albeit leaving a multitude of other problems in its wake.

"It wasn't me," Harry repeated. I almost shot him right that instant, but then he said, "It was my twin brother."

Complete amazement stayed my hand. I should have shot him in that second, but I just couldn't believe he'd make up such a stupid alibi.

"You don't have a twin brother," I said my voice as cold as open space. "Last time I checked, Harry, I wasn't stupid. So if you've got anything else to tell me before you die, now's the time."

"I do have a twin," Harry insisted. "I just never told you I did."

"Kind of pertinent information to leave out, don't you think?" It made me wonder what else he hadn't told me. If, in fact, he was telling the truth. I didn't think for one minute that he was.

"I don't talk about him much."

"No kidding."

He gave me another of those wide-eyed looks, the kind that usually had my heart melting, but not this time.

"Assuming you really do have a twin, and I don't believe that you do, why would he want to kill me?"

"It's not you he really wants to do in," Harry said. I thought I detected a trace of sorrow in his voice that he tried to hide. "It's me."

"And I'm what, an appetizer to the main course?"

"Pretty much. He wants me gone, but I suspect he wants me to suffer first."

I still had the gun shoved under his chin, and I wasn't loosening my grip any time soon. "Well, he might have misjudged that situation a tad," I snapped.

His black, almond-shaped eyes widened further. "No, he didn't, Raina. I would be miserable if you were dead."

"Right Harry. My heart bleeds."

"Really."

I tossed the handheld down on the bunk, figuring I was being played and might need both hands soon. "Okay, say I play along a little and give you the benefit of the doubt. Prove to me that's your twin."

"Personally, I don't think he looks anything like me," he had the nerve to say. "He's not anything like me."

"Not funny. Whatever you're playing at Harry, I'm not buying it. You have two seconds."

"The scar," he said quickly in that high voice that was so unlike him. "It's on the wrong side of his face."

I gave the palm top a cursory glance. "The photo could be flopped."

"It's not. The scar is real. It's how males in my clan prove their worthiness to enter manhood, but I received mine during a knife fight with my brother. He purposely scarred the wrong side of my face, thinking that if I was disfigured, I would be disqualified as heir, leaving the job open for him." Again that trace of sorrow. "He was wrong."

It sounded so far fetched as to almost be plausible. I didn't know whether to believe him or not. I didn't really know what to think. Or really, what to do. I couldn't hold him at gunpoint forever. Eventually, I was going to have to kill him or release him and trust him not to shoot me in my sleep. Or in any other unguarded moment.

Damn me to a multitude of hells, I knew all of that, and still I couldn't kill him. After all I'd been through, after all the death and destruction I'd seen, I wouldn't have thought I'd have that sort of weakness, but Harry turned out to be my one big weakness. The one that would haunt me for the rest of my life.

"Okay," I said, pulling the gun away. Relief washed across his features. I leaned harder on him, warning him that, although I'd removed the gun, it wasn't over yet. He took the hint and froze, remaining so still I hardly felt him breathe. He'd noted I still hadn't thumbed the safety back on. Slowly, I got up off the bunk, keeping the blaster trained on him. "You have a momentary reprieve, Harry, but one wrong move and I'll shoot you without warning. I don't for a moment believe your hastily-contrived story, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt." I waited an instant for him to say something. When he didn't offer any other excuses, I added. "For now."

He got up very slowly, hands raised in the universal signal of surrender. "I swear, Raina. I haven't lied to you about anything."

"Lied," I asked. "Well, not that I can prove at this very moment, but I suspect you've stretched the truth to the breaking point. You better turn out to have a twin, or I swear, you're going to be a very dead man."

Harry edged away from me along the wall, heading for the cabin door.

"And take this as notice that I won't be sharing your bunk tonight. I'll be in my own quarters. With the door locked and booby-trapped."

"Okay," he said, barely a whisper. "I can prove to you that I have a twin, Raina. I just need to tap into the right database and access the files."

"Right," I snapped. "Like I'd accept your hacked and tampered files as proof."

"Whatever," he said, at least pretending to be contrite. "If it's proof you want, I'll get it for you."

"You do that, Harry," I said. I let him leave the cabin first. No way in all the hells, I was going to put my back to him.

We had an 0400 departure time to leave for Xaria. That had been arranged days ago, before the assassin. I could have stayed in port. I could have demanded at gunpoint that Harry empty the coffers and give me start-up cash. I also knew the accounts were desperately low, lower than they'd been for months. That's the problem with piracy, sometimes the goods take awhile to unload. We needed this run to Xaria to unload the rubies. I needed the money from it. The last thing I wanted to do now was to hang around dockside and wait to be gunned down by a replacement assassin.

So, I did exactly what I said I'd do. I raided the galley and holed up in my cramped cabin, the one that was nowhere near the size of Harry's. I hadn't slept in there in months. Most of my clothes, most of my things were in the holds in Harry's chamber. Damn. But I only had to last through the next couple of nights. Once we'd finished on Xaria, I'd be in better shape to make a run for it.

I'd been a fool, I thought as I eyed my cramped surroundings. I'd pretty much taken Harry at his word that he was who he said he was. How did I know there even was a Kong Dynasty? I'd never checked. Okay, we'd met in the middle of war. My entire planet had been razed into oblivion. Any port in a storm, and all. I didn't ask a lot of questions. Back then I really didn't care. Now that shortsightedness had caught up to me.

I managed to sleep for a few moments, my blaster propped in my hand, safety off. If the door so much as budged, I would have fired. And probably hit my own foot, but at least I felt a little safer. The rumble of the engines warming up woke me.

Rubbing a hand across my eyes, I lurched to my feet. My hand clenched around the blaster. Luckily it didn't go off. I thumbed the safety back on and holstered it. Hopefully, Harry would be so busy with his duties as pilot that he wouldn't have attention left to spare to kill me.

I stopped by the galley and grabbed myself a cup of the local stimulant in a spill-proof bulb. A fresh pot of it already sat brewing, but I made a new one anyway. I almost went without because I had no way of knowing if once his plot to assassinate me was foiled, Harry might be desperate enough to poison me. I eyed the grain beverage in its pack on the galley shelf. An unopened one sat beside it. I opened it and dumped the contents in the brewer. If nothing else, I needed to be thinking clearly and the lack of sleep made that difficult. I substituted grain beverage for sleep and headed for the bridge.

Already deep in un-docking procedures, Harry didn't turn as I entered, but I noted the way his eyes slid to the side nervously in his reflection in the monitors. I set the bulb in its holder on the co-pilot's console and strapped in.

With well-practiced coordination we left dock. We didn't so much as utter a word to each other as we floated free of the station and out into open space. We worked well together, I thought with regret. Too bad we wanted to kill each other.

Harry keyed in coordinates for Xaria. The drive engines came on-line. I tensed, the way I always do as the ship lurched into hyperspace. I waited until the bumping and vibrating had lessened and Harry had engaged the autopilot. Then I unstrapped and headed back to the galley for more of the grain stimulant. It tasted awful, but I could already feel the familiar buzz working its way through my veins. So far, it didn't appear to be laced with poison and I wanted to be wide awake for whatever awaited me at Xaria.

I clamped the end of the carafe onto the bulb and squeezed, watching as the dark liquid was forced into the bulb. Something moved out in the corridor. I glanced up, debating whether it warranted dropping the carafe and going for my blaster. Harry moved into my line of sight, hands raised.

"Moraina, for the last time, I didn't order a hit on you."

"Right, Harry, so you've said ." Once again, I debated drawing my gun. "It was your evil twin brother."

"I know it sounds far-fetched...."

"That it does. Just don't..." I said, pushing past him. How many times did we have to go through this?

He watched me go, his eyes snapping to the newly opened container. I watched as his almond-shaped eyes narrowed. He said nothing.

I wandered back to the bridge and sat in my chair, staring blankly at the screen. Stimulant kicked in. Now I just felt jumpy. I had to get myself together before we landed. I had to calm this sudden bout of nerves. I'd had all kinds of people try to kill me. A few had come frighteningly close, but I'd never had a lover try and do me in. Not that I'd had many lovers. They had a habit of dying before we could get real close. Every ounce of my being wanted to believe his contrived tale of an evil twin. And if I did that I'd be as dead as that assassin had tried to make me.

No, when we got to Xaria, I had to find a way to get as far away from Harry and his friends as possible. Evil twin brothers included.

Space warped around us. On the bridge the claxon sounded, alerting us that we'd arrived at our destination. Harry's heavy footsteps echoed on the deck behind me. I turned, still not willing to put my back to him. That he'd left me there alone on the bridge seemed incredulous in itself. I wouldn't have left me there alone.

Obviously that thought suddenly occurred to him because he scanned the instruments, finding everything in order. His shoulders relaxed. He shot me a nervous look. That in itself was unnerving. Harry was about the most ruthless person I knew. Nothing made him nervous.

Supposedly, after we dumped the rubies, we were to pick up a shipment of Zubian wine. Not really my favorite drink, but most of the galaxy seemed to like it. So it promised a quick turnaround. However, the health of our coffers was no longer my problem. I could bet that my difficulties lay more along the lines of either a new assassin or an evil twin brother waiting for me.

Had we really come to Xaria to trade rubies for wine? At the time I hadn't thought anything about it. Now I'd started to wonder if it wasn't all just a back-up plan of Harry's in case the hit on me at our last port failed.

I could drive myself crazy trying to imagine all possible scenarios. I was an assassin, I reminded myself. I was used to dealing with all kinds of contingencies. I would survive.

Still barely speaking, we maneuvered through the docking procedures. I waited until the ship shuddered to a stop. Harry gave me a searching look. "I know you don't believe me, Moraina, but please be careful down there."

"Right," I snapped. He truly looked worried for me. Or maybe it was for himself.

"Let's just get this done. We need to unload some of those rubies. We need the cash."

Did we need the money because Harry had spent it all ordering a hit on me? Or were we really that broke? Piracy was a hit or miss occupation, no pun intended. Sometimes we were lucky. Sometimes ... not so much.

He hesitated in the hatch, looking back at me. I waved for him to precede me. No way was I giving him my back. Ever again.

Our footsteps echoed down the metal docking ramp to the station center. We were supposed to meet our contact at the local bar. Every station had a bar like that. People needed a place to wait before catching their flights. A great deal of other business besides waiting went on there, as well. Some of it spilled out of the station hub and into the nearby satellite settlements. One of the hazards of doing interstellar business. Luckily out business was confined to the station center. Hopefully, that meant it could be accomplished quickly without bloodshed. Mine or anyone else's.

Xaria station didn't offer the nicest of accommodations. Dingy corridors and stained decks led in a warren of twists and turns. Hard to follow anyone down those winding hallways. Which probably made it the right kind of place to be doing our kind of business.

We heard the din from the local bar before we found it. Or rather I should say, smelled it. I wrinkled my nose in distaste. Harry didn't look any more pleased.

Of all the places I could meet my end, I sincerely hoped it wasn't this one.

I stepped into darkness, hand on my blaster, shielding myself with Harry's back. Which meant no one was shielding mine. Harry moved deftly in the darkness. Clearly he'd been there before. I followed, gaze darting to the side and trying to cast nonchalant glances behind me. I don't think I fooled anyone, but I was long past trying to keep up appearances. This time I just wanted to make it out alive. My war time buddies would have been shocked. Once the chance of living had taken root, I found I didn't want to let it go as much as I'd thought.

Harry took a seat at a table against the wall. I sat beside him. With the metal wall protecting us, we had only the front and both sides to cover. Barring the chance of anyone trying to shoot through the partition, of course.

Our contact turned out to be a blue-skinned Tratorian. And not a good-looking blue-skinned Tratorian at that. Purple warts covered his skin from head to foot. I could tell because in the custom of his species, he went naked except for the black leather holster slung low on his hips. 'He', no doubt about it. I tried to hide my revulsion. Harry elbowed me to show I hadn't.

His nakedness made it hard to hide weapons, I thought, then corrected myself. I hoped he wasn't carrying any concealed weapons. Where they might be concealed nearly made me sick.

He took a seat across from us. I vowed not to sit in that chair. I vowed never to sit in a chair I hadn't closely examined ... ever!

The Tratorian ordered a drink from the robotic waiter. A multitude of eyes slid back to their business, content nothing interesting was happening at our table no matter how compelling the company. Harry said something in a language I didn't recognize. Whatever he said, the Tratorian didn't like it much. Obviously, negotiations weren't going as well as he'd hoped.

The robot arrived with his drink. The Tratorian pulled a credit chit from a slot in his gun belt. I noticed a lot of eyes turning curiously in our direction as he swiped the chit across the pad and paid. I guess others were wondering the same things as I was. Negotiations resumed with fervor, though both Harry and the alien kept their voices low to allow the nature of their business to be muffled by the cantina din. I couldn't follow what was being said, but Harry slid a bag of rubies across the table. Apparently, the Tratorian was demanding to see the merchandise. More fervently-whispered threats and insults. Perversely, I wondered where the Tratorian was going to put the rubies if he bought them.

More whispered threats. More table banging. Then the Tratorian pulled out his credit chit again. Harry produced his handheld. The alien stuck the card in the reader. It beeped, signaling money had been exchanged. The Tratorian palmed the bag of rubies and departed, leaving his drink untouched.

I raised eyebrows at Harry. He didn't look displeased, so he must have gotten nearly as much as he'd hoped. So far so good.

We waited until the Tratorian had left the bar and the interest of the other patrons had wandered to other business. Then we made our getaway.

Maybe I wasn't going to get killed here, I thought with relief as we walked down the filthy metal corridors. I relaxed too soon.

No sooner had the thought crossed my mind when a blaster bolt seared through the air above my head. A wave of heat followed in its wake. I ducked, yanking my blaster from its holster. Harry did the same.

Okay, that's odd, I couldn't help thinking. If Harry had ordered the hit, why wouldn't he have waited for a time when he was safely elsewhere with an air-tight alibi? Unless this was the way he intended to play it. I have no idea, Your Honor, why someone would want to kill Moraina Keller ... but Captain Keller does have a rather checkered past. He might even throw in a convincing tear for the jury.

Another bolt whizzed above my head, snapping my attention back to the present.

I fired and heard a screech of pain. I fired again just for good measure. Must have missed this time because all I heard this time was a vicious curse. Harry had his own blaster out of its holster. Obviously he'd thought if we hadn't been ambushed in the cantina that we weren't in danger, that making it back to the ship in one piece just might be a possibility.

For the first time I started to wonder if maybe Harry had been telling the truth, that there was someone behind this sudden ambush who intended to take me out first. Get rid of the bodyguard and the target becomes a lot more vulnerable.

"Tell me again," I grunted, staring through the fog generated by our gun fire, "That you have no part in this."

Harry fired again. Seeing an opening, he dragged me further down the corridor. Using me as a shield I thought with disgust. Apparently, he still intended for me to do my job.

"For the gods' sake, Moraina! Do you actually think I'd put myself in the line of fire just to do you in?"

That, if nothing else he'd said made sense.

"Okay, I believe you. Sort of."

He fired again past my head. Close enough for me to feel the heat of the energy bolt. If I had any hair left when I died-which quite honestly seemed imminent-I'd be lucky.

Something moved in the mist. I fired. I heard a thud hit the corridor.

Taking that as a lucky break, we ran for it. Skirmishes in port stations weren't unusual, but it wouldn't be long before the commotion attracted the unwanted attention of whatever passed for the law in these parts. That definitely wasn't good for business.

We made it back to the ship just as calls for order were echoing through the overhead speakers. Apparently our little disagreement had given a few others the same idea.

All but falling through the hatch, we bolted toward the bridge. Guess we weren't going to pick up that wine, after all. Harry fired up The Needle's engines. I marveled at how calm he sounded on the Comm as he called departure instructions. The little skirmish at port hadn't degenerated into a general lock down. We were in luck.

The Needle lifted off. I helped Harry through departure procedures, then I locked myself in my cabin and slept.

Nothing disturbed my rest. No hails on the Comm. No laser shots across our bow. No late night visits from Harry. I rose, fell into the sonic shower and emerged feeling only marginally better. Harry waited for me in the galley, a mug of stim in his hands.

"Here," he said, handing it to me.

I sniffed it suspiciously, then drank. It tasted okay. "I take it it's not poisoned?"

"For the millionth time, Raina, I'm not trying to kill you."

"Someone is," I pointed out. "Someone who looks a lot like you."

"Someone is trying to kill both of us," he corrected.

"Okay, that's new." I had to give him that much.

"Can't say I care for the feeling," he remarked. "Though I've been living with the idea for most of my life."

"I've been living with the idea my whole life, Harry. And I've made it this far. I'm not going to let someone get me now." I gave him a long, measuring glance. "Even you."

"I would never hurt you, Moraina." He stepped in close to me, obviously intending to touch me, but I darted out of his grasp.

"For your sake, Harry, I sincerely hope you're telling the truth."

I wanted to believe him, really I did. I mean, I'd slept with him for the gods' sake! It all just felt so wrong. I know we'd been ambushed in a corridor and had to fight for our lives, but in the grand scheme of battles, we'd gotten away too easily. And we both knew it.

Harry wandered back to the bridge to keep an eye on things while I sulked over my cup of stim. I didn't really want his company, but I didn't want to be alone either. So after a few more moments of staring into its dark depths, I headed for the bridge to join him. Might be best, I decided, instead of brooding in my quarters alone, to keep an eye on his every move.

"That's funny," Harry said as I entered.

"I can't think of anything about our current situation that's amusing," I snapped.

Harry shot me an impatient look. "I meant odd, not humorous."

Another pang of worry shivered down my spine. I tensed. "What's odd?"

He pointed to the readouts on the equipment panel. "For some reason we're carrying extra mass."

"How much extra mass?"

"Negligible, but strange none the less."

"We dumped some waste and got rid of kilos of rubies."

"Right." He sounded more worried by the second. "But I accounted for both of those and it still doesn't add up."

A thought tickled the back of my mind, then became a full fledged worry. I all but leapt into the copilot's seat and activated the exterior cameras.

"You're not thinking..." he asked as the cameras panned over The Needle's sleek exterior.

"Well, if taking me out didn't work, and gunning us both down in the corridor failed, what would you do?"

"Maybe they weren't trying to take us out in the corridor, maybe they were just trying to distract us."

I stared out at the grainy images on The Needle's hull. Nothing looked out of place until I zoomed in for a better look. "Well, they succeeded."

Harry lurched from his seat. Staring over my shoulder, he studied the dark lump sticking out of The Needle's hull like a pimple.

I used to be a sailor, but the string of expletives that issued from his mouth made even me blush. I didn't stay to hear how the tirade ended. I was already running for my pressure suit that lay on its hook beside the hatch.

Harry's footsteps echoed on the deck behind me. Reaching the hatch together, we wedged in the doorway. I stepped back to let him in first. I still wasn't going to give him my back even now. "I'm going out," I said.

"No. This is personal. If anyone's going out, it's going to be me."

"I have some explosives training," I pointed out. Really rusty, almost forgotten, rudimentary explosives training, but I didn't tell Harry that. "And if we don't get that thing off the hull it's really not going to matter."

He considered that for a moment. "Okay."

"Suit up anyway," I said. "Just in case I fail."

Not that drifting alone in out in vacuum in a pressure suit would buy you much time. We both knew that.

Standing in the airlock, the deep black of space overwhelmed me. Nothing can prepare you for the endless darkness broken only by the knife-edge brilliance of stars. Planet dwellers like us were never meant to venture out there. Though I'd spent most of my life in space, I never got used to that endless expanse of blackness or the cold that seeped through even the best of vacuum suits, a constant reminder that we were trespassing here and we ought to go home.

I wished I could go home, but Tallus was long gone. Everyone I knew was either dead or scattered amongst those stars. Or possibly in a Malvarian prison camp.

I dragged myself from the pit of self-pity it seemed so easy to fall into lately. At least I wasn't in a Malvarian prison camp. It could be worse. Much, much worse!

"Raina?" Harry tinny voice erupted from my suit radio. "You okay?"

"Yeah." I stepped out of the airlock. Using my magnetic grapplers, I moved along the hull.

"Can you see the bomb?"

"It's still there, if that's what you mean."

"Funny," he replied. "How close are you?"

I crab-walked along the hull, inching closer to the bomb. Every instinct I possessed screamed at me to get back inside, to get away from the dizzying array of stars and the bomb, as fast I could. But getting back inside wouldn't even be a possibility if the bomb went off. So, I moved steadily toward the explosive device.

Dangling by the magnets holding my feet to the hull, I reached out with my right hand and tried to dislodge the thing. It held fast.

"Well?" Harry asked.

"It's really stuck," I grunted back. "It's right under the waste disposal shaft, attached to one of the doors. I'm surprised they didn't detonate it as soon as we cleared the station.

"Too dangerous in-system," Harry said.

I pulled out the metal bar I'd tucked into my pocket and tried gingerly prying up the corner of the device. No luck.

"It would be bad form to blow someone up in the middle of a crowded solar system," he added. "But only if they could prove that it was a bomb. I'm sure they'd try to make it look like some kind of engine malfunction. Pin it on us post mortem."

"Like it would matter if we were dead."

"They could always sue my estate."

I followed his logic. The idle conversation took the edge off my panic as I tried again to separate the thing from the hull. Who would care if Harry's estate got sued? Ultimately, it led back to the invisible twin brother. "Don't start with the twin brother stuff again," I warned. "I'm too busy out here to argue with you."

"No luck?"

"Nah," I grunted back. Any second the thing was going to explode, taking me and Harry and The Needle with it. I stared up at the trash chute. Damned if sudden inspiration didn't hit me.

"Okay, this sounds weird," I began.

"I'm listening," Harry answered.

"Open the garbage chute."

Harry said, "What?"

"I said it was weird. You're just going to have to trust me because the one thing I really want to do is to get as far away from this thing as possible."

A long silence ensued.

"Running out of time here, Harry."

"Okay," he said suddenly. I clamped all four grapplers onto the hull, put my head down and prayed.

The chute opened. Trash poured past me. A piece of debris hit me square in the head. That was going to leave one hell of a bump, I thought as more refuse came sailing past me, hitting me in every place possible and coating the outside of my suit with the gods knew what.

Once the bay doors had opened, it gave me some possibilities. I scrambled toward the outside of the chute. Drawing my blaster, I carved through the metal hinges that held the bay doors.

"What's going on?" Harry asked.

"Just leave the doors open for a moment," I snapped back.

The metal was thick and hard to saw through even with my blaster on full power, but I kept going until the door hung by one last piece of hinge like a broken tooth. Then cells on my blaster gave out and died. I cursed as colorfully as Harry had. Bracing myself with my arms and one leg, I gave it a kick.

The door tumbled off into space, taking the bomb with it.

"Open the airlock," I yelled, scrambling as fast as I could for shelter. "Get us out of here!"

I tumbled into the airlock. Beneath me, I felt the engines ramp up. Not a moment too soon, because I'd just tumbled to the floor, when the entire ship shuddered violently. I saw a blinding flash, then the bang reached my ears.

"Raina?" Harry asked anxiously.

"We're going to need to do some repairs the next time we dock," I said. "And I'm going to need a new pressure suit."

Harry's relieved laughter sounded loud in my ears.

As I'd told him, the pressure suit had to be jettisoned. The smell of refuse and garbage challenged even the most stringent of sterilization procedures. Only one door remained on the trash chute. We'd leak refuse all the way to port. Which meant a quick stop at some out of the way pirate's alley where we could get the repairs done discretely and quickly.

At least we hadn't been blown into our next lives. For that much I couldn't help being grateful. Harry on the other hand seemed ecstatic. I'd no sooner emerged from the decontamination unit than he threw his arms around me. I tried not to push him away. By now I'd pretty much decided that what had happened really hadn't been his fault. No way would Harry take a chance on blowing himself up, however accidentally. I couldn't help being glad that things were all right between us again, but I just didn't share his elation. Whoever wanted us dead was tenacious. We might be out of range for the moment, but that didn't mean they wouldn't be after us again at the earliest opportunity. Maybe the whole scene in the bar and the aborted bombing had only been a ruse to smoke us out.

It sure didn't help that we were leaving a trail of refuse halfway across the galaxy.

The adrenaline rush had worn off during decontamination. I sagged against the corridor, letting Harry rain grateful kisses over my face and neck.

"Moraina, that was brilliant! I would never have thought of hacking off the refuse bay doors."

"I do have my moments," I said, too tired for modesty.

"That is why I keep you around."

He meant it as a joke, a shared moment of levity after all the excitement. The comment stung because it was the truth. I stayed or left on Harry's say. Sure we had a relationship of sorts, but we weren't equals. Harry was heir to an entire dynasty. I was a military deserter who by all reckoning should have been dead months ago.

"This calls for a drink," he said, letting me go. He wandered toward the galley to uncork whatever libation we still had in stock.

"I think I really just need some sleep right now," I said gently disengaging myself. "That really took it out of me."

He looked hurt for a moment, but then the promise of liquor distracted him. "Okay, I guess that's understandable."

"Thanks," I said, heading for my quarters. Not his. That in itself made a statement. I couldn't help it. I just wanted some sleep. Alone with my thoughts and my worries.

"Keep an eye out, would you?" I called back over my shoulder. "Wake me up if anyone else shoots at us or if you find any more explosives." I only half meant it as a joke.

"Sure thing ." He sounded wounded. Too tired to care, I wandered to my bunk and fell in.

Too easy, I thought as sleep dragged me down into its murky depths. The bomb had scared me half to death, but still we'd survived. We'd gotten away too easy. I just wasn't that lucky. Something really bad was coming. I could feel it with every fiber of my being.

That was my last thought before unconsciousness closed its fist around me.

CHAPTER THREE: DAMMOS

We were on autopilot, cruising at a leisurely speed away from the shadow port where we'd paid handsomely to make The Needle's repairs and keep it quiet. Disaster averted and everything seemed in order once again. I poured myself a victory brandy. Harry had already consumed most of the bottle and seemed content to make drinking his evening's entertainment. My attempt at relaxation was short lived, however, because I just couldn't seem to calm down. Hours later, and every hair on the back of my neck was still standing on end. We were in danger. I knew it. Harry's behavior didn't make me feel any safer.

There he was, Harrison Kong III, heir to the mighty Kong dynasty, a man who had everything, except a purpose. It was a bizarre image, His Majesty, sprawled on the deck in our narrow cabin. I shook my head, and wandered back to the bridge. Too easy, my warrior instinct warned me. We'd escaped much too easy. I tried to swallow the feeling with another swig, but it stubbornly persisted. A glance down the corridor showed Harry peacefully asleep on the deck, his arms curled protectively around his treasure like a sleeping dragon. I should make more stim, pump him full of anti-intoxicants and make him listen to me.

A blast to port side sent me flying from the captain's chair. I grabbed the zero-gee handrails and held on as another tremor rattled the ship. In the cabin down the hall I heard Harry groan and turn over.

"Damned fine time to take a nap," I bellowed, rebounding off the control panel.

My fingers raced across the controls, sending a retaliatory bolt of laser fire to the computer's coordinates. Scope showed four ships approaching at close range. No idea how they'd eluded our scanners, but I didn't have time to wonder. I fired again, as fast as the batteries could recharge. Even I couldn't handle four ships solo. There was only one thing to do.

I ripped the door off our first aid cabinet, loaded the syringe full of anti-tox and dashed down the hall.

"Time to wake up, Harry," I said, yanking up his sleeve.

He came to with a yelp and a curse, but I was already up and racing back to head off the attack.

Harry must have gotten one hell of a jolt of adrenaline along with the anti-tox, because he was on the bridge before I could get the guns fired up again.

"What in a Malvarian hell is this?" his snarled, wanting to take a slug at me.

One look at the scope changed his mind. I launched another torrent of laser fire. Harry emptied the co-pilot's gun.

"I don't understand," he said, reaching across me and punching in new coordinates. "The alarms didn't go off."

"I don't know who they are or how they got so close, but I'm not in the mood to stick around for a chat."

Harry blanched, whether from his hangover, the anti-tox, or fear, I couldn't tell. The computer found a match in its database and beeped for attention. Schematics for craft that looked startlingly like ours flashed across the screen.

"I know who they are," Harry said suddenly.

"Who?" I yelled over the noise of the cannons emptying.

"Family," he said grimly and launched a few more bolts of his own.

"You picked one hell of a day for a reunion."

We took a direct hit. One of the guns went spinning off into space.

"Brace yourself, Moraina," Harry said. "My family makes the Malvarians seem like an afternoon at the pleasure farm."

"Great," I managed to growl, as their tractor beam snared us.

* * * *

They marched us down the docking tube and into the gun-metal gray interior of the cruiser. This was a scenario I was familiar with, having been a prisoner of war on more than one occasion. I managed to sniff with indifference at the twenty blasters pointed at our heads and followed Harry with my head high and my shoulders proud.

Harry was having a grand time. They bowed to him like he was some demi-god, instead of a fallen member of the house, all the while keeping their laser rifles primed and ready.

"Captain Wung," Harry said as they shoved him in front of a wiry man whose uniform was covered with medals.

Wung grinned, an expression that didn't touch the impervious depths of his eyes. "A pleasant surprise indeed, First Son. I had my doubts that you would follow our Gemman decoy, but alas, your greed rules your head as always."

"I told you that was way too easy," I muttered in Harry's direction.

Wung's black eyes shifted to me, raked me over once. He had to tilt his head to take me all in. I hoped it hurt his neck.

"And you have brought us a most profitable bonus."

Harry's eyes slid sideways, warning me against saying anything further.

"Isn't that right, Miss Keller?"

"That's Captain to you," I snapped.

"You are a shame to your rank. Or have you forgotten that desertion is punishable by death under Tallusian law?"

"If you could scrape together enough Tallusians to try me."

"For the Gods' Sake, Keller," Harry hissed. "Shut up!"

"Don't worry about your trial, Miss Keller," Wung said. Obviously, I was the highlight of his year. "Both the Dammian and Malvarian governments have a price on your head. I hear there's been quite a bidding war, especially since your most brilliant campaign on Dammos 4." He rubbed his hands with delight, no doubt already counting his share of my bounty. "All in all, a most prosperous day." Wung nodded to the guards. "Lock them up."

"Together?" the startled lieutenant asked.

Wung eyes Harry with distaste. "Their heir is entitled to his comforts. However odd they may seem." He glanced up at me with menace. "Strip search them first."

"What?" Harry asked in mock outrage. "You're not going to shoot me right here?"

"That honor is reserved for your brother. I believe the Second Son has a more entertaining execution in mind."

"Don't tell me he's actually going to do something himself?" Harry sneered as they hauled us off to the brig.

* * * *

"Well, this is some fine mess." I glared at the featureless metal ceiling above my bunk. My feet hung off the end of the narrow bunk, and it wasn't wide enough to pull my knees up, so I settled for pulling the rough blanket over my face.

With a rush of air, the door slid open and eight guards armed with heavy artillery escorted our dinner into the cell. They bowed to Harry, glared at me, deposited the trays on the floor and retreated.

Harry picked up his chopsticks and dug in. I watched him shovel rice into his face faster than should have been humanly possible. "How can you eat at a time like this?"

"No sense in dying hungry."

"What if it's poisoned?" I demanded, always the pessimist

"It's not poisoned," Harry assured me between swallows. "The price on your head is too high and my brother will have their heads if I arrive in less than mint condition." He motioned to my untouched tray. "Eat, Raina. It's very good."

I managed to spear a couple of grains of rice with my chopsticks, then gave up.

"I told you heading anywhere near Dammos was a stupid idea." I tossed my chopsticks into the bowl of rice.

"You going to eat that?" Harry inquired politely.

I glared at him and stalked back to my bunk.

Sighing, he came to sit beside me. "Don't you think it's time you told me what happened on Dammos 4?"

"I thought you knew all there was to know about me."

He grinned. "Like you said, that information is classified."

I stared at him dumbly. "You mean all this time you didn't know? You were only bluffing?" I snatched up the chopsticks, the only weapon at hand. "No wonder I always lose at poker."

"Now Raina, remember, if it wasn't for me, you'd be dead."

"I'm supposed to be dead, Harry. I never asked you to save my life."

"Consider it a bonus."

"Right," I said and sulked some more.

"Am I going to be the only one who doesn't know about Dammos?" he asked.

"I don't want to talk about it. The room's probably bugged anyway."

Harry shrugged. "What if it is?"

"I suppose it doesn't matter," I mused. "They're going to execute me anyway."

"Only if they can catch you."

"They've got me, Harry ."

"You're getting rather dismal in your old age, Keller. How many times have you been in enemy hands?"

"I've lost count."

"And you always got away, right?"

"Right."

"So tell me the damned story. I'm bored, and there's nothing else to do, unless...."

I shot him a look that said, drop dead at your earliest convenience. "Don't even think of it, Harry. I'm not in the mood."

"You're in a mood, all right."

Thinking about Dammos always made me feel foul.

"Look, it wasn't my fault," I said, and not for the first time. I'd told my story under interrogation to both the Malvarians and the Tallusians more times than I could count. "I was just following orders. They don't pay you to think in the army. Just to do as they say and not ask questions. And hopefully to not get yourself killed, although that part is optional."

Harry was curled up on the bunk like a kid expecting a bedtime story. Damn him, he was enjoying this.

"It started out straightforward enough. We were supposed to fly by and take out a series of munitions plants on the surface of Dammos 4."

The Dammians were allies of the Malvarians, our ancestral enemies. Over the centuries we'd come to loathe them almost as much as the Malvarians.

"And you blew them into their next lives," Harry supplied.

"Basically, yes. I was always good at blowing things up. We did a conscientious job of it. We razed every munitions plant on the surface and several below ground. We turned the entire planet into a wasteland."

"Sounds routine enough to me."

"It was routine," I said. "Until I found out that our Intelligence had made a mistake. Dammos 4 was a refugee planet. A fleet of ships carrying over four million civilians was due to leave within hours." I looked morosely into his eyes. "But we got there first."

"You couldn't have known."

"Tell the Dammians that. To them this is a holy war, and I just committed a major sin. It goes against the Malvarian code of ethics, as well. Hell, it goes against my code of ethics!"

"That's why they decided to blow Tallus out of the sky."

I stared at my feet. "Do you realize I'm single-handedly responsible for the escalation of this entire war ... and the destruction of Tallus?"

Harry snorted. "Don't flatter yourself. Tallus and Malvaria were at war long before you were born."

I nodded, taking his reassurances at face value. It was the closest Harry ever came to a kind gesture. "So how are we going to get out of this?" I asked, changing the subject.

"Shh!" Harry hissed, placing a finger against my lips. "The place is probably bugged."

Throwing up my hands in exasperation, I prayed for strength. I couldn't kill him now. I needed him to help me get out of the mess we were in.

"Don't worry," he said with a glance at the wild look in my eyes. "An opportunity will arise."

"Right," I snarled, the tenuous hold on my temper disintegrating. "An opportunity to die."

"Haven't you ever heard of optimism?" he asked, stealing the bunk.

I snatched up the only blanket, stretched out on the floor and worked the cramps out of my legs. Maybe he was right. Maybe I was being overly pessimistic. I'd been colder. I'd been hungrier. And I wasn't dead. Yet.

I awoke to the slap of regulation boots against the metal deck.

"Harry!" I shook him hard. When that produced no results, I issued a sharp elbow to the ribs.

"Ouch!" He did have good reflexes, I'll give him that much. "Ah," he said, looking at the wall of uniforms coming right at us, "An opportunity arises."

"Huh?" I began, then had the good sense to keep quiet.

The doors slid open, the entourage oozed inside. A figure emerged from the center of the group and stepped up to Harry.

I gaped. "You are twins!"

So he wasn't lying. Deep down I'd hoped the barely-credible story he'd told me was the truth, but until now, I really hadn't believed.

I couldn't help but stare at this stranger who looked so much like Harry. Except for Harry's scar, they were identical.

Harry's twin bowed. "Older brother."

Harry bowed in return. "Insignificant, upstart brat."

His brother straightened, fury flushing his face deep red. Swiftly he reigned in his temper. "An accident of fate you were born two minutes earlier. An unfortunate circumstance that will soon be rectified."

Harry grinned. "Oh, I'm sure it will."

That comment caught Younger Brother off guard, just for a second, but long enough.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Harry move.

A black blur, the sound of a punch hitting its target. For a moment it looked bad. I heard a loud whine as twenty blasters were simultaneously charged. The army hesitated, Harry and Younger Brother were too entwined for them to get a clean shot at either one.

Harry emerged on top, grasping his twin in a choke hold.

Twenty sets of eyes turned their way. I seized the opportunity and snatched the blaster from Younger Brother's holster.

"Took you long enough," Harry grumbled.

"I'd just as soon vent the lot of you," I snarled back. But Harry, being Harry, only grinned.

The Kong Army waited, torn between wanting to reduce Harry to a smoldering crisp and afraid of harming Younger Brother.

"Well, Younger Brother," Harry said. I wondered if he actually had a given name, or if he'd been denigrated to spending his life as Younger Brother. Y. B. for short. Harry tightened his grip on his twin. "The army's waiting. Tell them what to do."

I rammed the blaster barrel harder against his temple and watched with satisfaction when he winced. "I'm getting impatient," I warned. "And trust me, you don't want to make me angry."

"Captain Keller has an unstable personality," Harry remarked. "You don't want to do anything to set her off."

Younger Brother regarded me from the corner of one green eye. I did my best to look dangerous.

"This time you win, Harrison," Younger Brother sighed. "What do you want?"

Harry shook his head. "You never were too bright, Drachen-Jin. Tell them to put down their guns."

His twin issued the order. The army obeyed.

"And now I want safe passage out of here for Keller and me. To make sure I get what I want, and I always get what I want-don't forget that Younger Brother-we'll just take you with us on a little walk to the docking bay."

* * * *

We marched to the docking bay with an escort of twenty guns.

"You get inside and fire her up," Harry ordered. "I'll stay out here and baby-sit."

He'd retrieved my knife and now had it pressed sharply against Younger Brother's throat.

I turned to obey.

"Fire up the light speed engines," Harry said quietly. I looked back at the solemn congregation, nodded and disappeared inside.

A few minutes later, I stuck my head out of the hatch and called, "Ready."

Harry beamed. "It's been nice seeing you all gain. We have to do this again sometime."

He moved toward the hatch, dragging his twin with him.

"What?" Younger Brother screamed. "Aren't you going to let me go? I've given you everything you asked for."

"Of course I'll let you go, mewling brat," Harry snarled. "I just want to make sure I get to keep my misspent life, so I'm taking out some insurance."

"Keller, get us out of here," he said, dragging his twin in after him.

"Let him go," I said. "They'll only follow us."

"What if they do?"

I glared at Harry, and disengaged the ship.

Sure enough, I'd no sooner fired the engines when our sensors picked them up, following closely behind.

"Give me the helm," Harry said. "You take care of my dear brother."

"What do you want me to do with him?" I asked, yanking him from Harry's grasp. For the first time since we'd met, Younger Brother looked scared.

"Suit him up."

I said, "What?"

Younger Brother said, "What?"

Suit him up," Harry repeated in a tone that didn't encourage asking for clarification. "And vent him."

"No problem," I said, dragging Harry's mirror image after me. "Come on, Younger Brother, let me give you a tour of our airlock."

Hard to believe two people could resemble each other so closely and yet be so different. Younger Brother whined and pleaded all the way there.

"Oh shut up," I growled finally. "They're right behind us. As long as you don't get sucked into the light speed engines, you'll be fine."

That thought shut him up. He was quiet as I slammed the helmet over his head. "Waste of a good suit," I grumbled. I hit the intercom. "You ready, Harry?"

"Roger."

I closed the inner lock and watched through the porthole as Younger Brother drifted off into open space. The airlock recycled.

It took them forever to snare him. On the aft cameras, I watched them reel him in.

Then Harry engaged the light speed drives.

* * * *

"He'll never leave us alone. You're going to have to kill him one day," I told him later.

"Should have done him in a long time ago," Harry said. He sat in the captain's chair and sulked. "But what can I say? He's family."

"Family," I echoed. "It's been a long time since I thought about my family."

"Why?" he asked absently, but I could tell he was really lost in his own thoughts.

Why indeed? I wondered. What happened on Dammos had driven a wedge between us, damaging every familial relationship I had. Now that Tallus had been reduced to stardust and everyone I knew was dead, their condemnation of me had ceased to matter. So what was it that kept me from at least remembering the good times?

"Too many ghosts," I whispered finally. Turning away from Harry and his own family dramas, I contemplated our latest brush with death.

At the time I thought Harry's brother was our biggest threat. That was before I experienced Timeslide.

How in all the hells was I supposed to know there were worse things in the universe than renegade twin brothers, namely time traveling assassins?

CHAPTER FOUR: TIMESLIDE

Harry doubled up laughing the first time I tried Timeslide. Probably it was my expression as I stared into oblivion while time settled and my surroundings slid back into focus. I shook my head to clear it of the images that lingered just beyond comprehension, and allowed my stomach to settle back to its accustomed spot. In my absence Harry had played my hand. Of course I'd lost.

"Hey, give me that!" I reached across the table, sending the cards into a miniature hurricane. Harry was stuffing a small black box into his pocket. Around us the narrowed eyes of the cantina low-life crept back to their previous interests.

"Harry," I said, casting a nervous glance over my shoulder, "whatever that thing is, you're a fool to show it off here."

"Let's go," said Harry in agreement.

We made our way through the smoke-filled cantina, through half-whispers about Harry Kong, the bored aristocrat, and his Tallusian assassin. At another time those whispers would have warranted a brandished blaster, but I held my temper and we stole from the bar into the musty night beyond.

I stepped first, blaster drawn, into the cobblestone roadway which broke off into a labyrinth of passages, all spiraling downward to the spaceport at the bottom of the hill. There the port beckoned in a myriad of lights, an ugly scar against the scenery of the ancient city.

A thousand shadows lined the curves of the spiral roadway. A thousand hands, holding a thousand blasters waited to relieve Harry Kong of his mysterious new treasure. And I was Harry's bodyguard.

"Fool," I said through clenched teeth. "Harry, you make my job difficult."

"You're well paid."

"Not well enough." It was half past midnight on a planet with a 48-hour day, and thanks to Harry I probably wouldn't be getting much sleep. I stifled a yawn, took a tighter hold on my blaster, and pushed forward, Harry bringing up the rear. The third moon was rising in the west, casting inky shadows in triplicate on the cobblestone. Shelter could have been a galaxy away.

The road twisted abruptly and our vision was blocked by a stone wall. We stopped in the shadows, trying even to breathe quietly. I peered out into the roadway. The spaceport lay just beyond us, a narrow dash, easily accomplished.

Except that the passageway was blocked by every hired gun in the city.

I turned to Harry and the black box he held in his hand. Our attackers closed the space between us, moonlight reflecting off their blasters. Harry grasped my shoulder and his finger moved along the inky gleam of the instrument. Then the bottom of the world fell out.

I tensed, waiting for the dizzy nothingness of falling, the horrible feeling that reality never was. Blurred and distorted images swept past us, then there was ground once more beneath our feet.

"That does it Harry. I quit."

"Go ahead," Harry said, "but remember, I'm holding the box. Unless, of course, you'd like to stay here. Permanently, that is."

He had a point. The bastard always did.

"I should have killed you when I had the chance."

"You should have, but you didn't."

I thought back to our ill-fated meeting. Killing Harry would have simplified things in so many ways, but I couldn't imagine my life without him. In recent months we'd settled into an odd sort of relationship, part business associates, part lovers, part gods knew what.

I forced my thoughts back to the present and looked around me. At a glance the city looked much like the one from our home timeframe, but with closer scrutiny it obviously wasn't. Weeds sprang up from between cracks in the cobblestone and buildings crumbled at their foundations. No spaceport blared in a symphony of spotlights at the foot of the hill. In fact, there were no signs of occupancy anywhere. It was a desolate planet, and I could think of a million other places I'd rather be.

"Let's get out of here."

"Why? This place making you nervous?"

"Frankly, yes." That was Harry's problem. He wasn't afraid of anything.

Then I saw the gun barrel protruding from a pile of rubble off to our right.

"Harry," I said, gesturing with my eyes.

Harry followed my gaze. His finger hovered above the button. "Get ready to run."

Time whirled and collapsed upon itself and we were back on the roadway at the foot of the hill. Our captors had broken their ranks searching for us. We started running before our feet touched ground.

A cry went up as we were discovered and a shot rebounded from a stone wall. I slowed enough to aim. A man went down. Then the spaceport loomed up in front of us.

Harry's ship beckoned to us from a nearby launch bay as we crossed the gates with a dozen blaster barrels at our backs. I boarded fully believing I was going to die, as a hail of fire split the air around us. The Needle rumbled to life under my fingers. Harry's ship had a thick skin, wisely so.

"Shields up," I advised Harry. Our pursuers separated like an army of ants on the screen, running for their own ships. Several were already in the air, blocking the pathway to open space. Harry decided to call their bluff. My stomach tightened into a fist of rock as they held their positions and fire shook the space around us. Harry was going to ram.

I fought a sudden compulsion to shut my eyes and prayed to Tallusian gods I had neglected since childhood. But the ships parted in a sudden wave in front of us and open space lay beyond.

"We'll outrun them easily," Harry said with a laugh. I slumped over the controls. Our pursuers were falling far behind us. The Needle was faster than it looked, also wisely so. It had seen its share of illegal doings in its short life.

"You do it Harry," I said, and I staggered aft to the bunk that awaited me and tumbled in.

"That's a dangerous toy," I said later, as I lay awake beside him. "What is it?"

"It's a cross-timeslider."

"Wonderful ." I tossed Harry's leg off mine and sat up.

"It is wonderful," Harry said, ignoring my sarcasm.

"Sure," I snarled, giving him my most disapproving look. "A wonderful way to get yourself killed."

"Look," Harry said, in one of his damnable lecturing moods. "Every time you make a decision you confront crossroads. Depending on how you decide, your journey down one of these roads in time. Now, if we could travel across these timeframes...."

"We'd probably find one in which I killed you on the night we met--like I should have."

"That's essentially it," Harry said. He smiled despite of my threat. "The timeslider was invented by a race in an alternate timeline of ours. It's almost a vice in some timeframes because of the disorientating effect it has on the nervous system. It was originally designed to transport one person into several different timeframes, all of which have some form of time travel, so as not to interfere with non-time traveling natives. These destinations are numbered and have corresponding buttons." He gestured with the instrument. "But someone decided to make a few illegal modifications, like including a few new profitable destinations, one of which is our home timeframe. This variation of the timeslider can transport two people, and it is homed in on our originating niche in time. We could leave in an instant if we had to."

"An instant is still long enough to get yourself killed," I stated flatly.

I paused in thought, the immenseness of it all crowding in on me. Suddenly I turned accusing eyes on Harry.

"So how did you get this timeslider thing?"

"I stole it."

"And what if whoever owns it comes looking for it?"

"He won't. He's dead. And besides, I'd have you to protect me. That's what I pay you for."

"Now wait a minute, Harry," I said. "My contract doesn't cover suicide or time-traveling assassins." I left out evil twin brothers. "I'm only required to protect your from dangers in the known galaxy. Which reminds me, who in charted space did you steal that thing from?"

"From a time-traveling assassin, of course."

"When?" I demanded. I'd hardly had Harry out of my sight for months.

"While you were on Zubia."

"I knew I shouldn't have left you."

"You were taking care of business."

"It's the business you were taking care of that worries me, Harry." I gripped him by the shoulders and looked directly into his emerald eyes. "Now listen to me," I said sharply. "That thing is bad news. I want you to get rid of it ."

It was all getting far too complicated, I thought dimly.

Harry looked back at me, obviously undaunted by the murderous look on my face. "No."

My head suddenly hurt and my stomach was giving me blatant warnings. "Aside from time-traveling assassins, did it occur to you that there might be some sort of Time

Police out looking for people like you?"

"There could be," Harry said. "But it's a risk we'll have to take."

I released him and thrust him away from me. "I don't like risks."

"Moraina," Harry said, moving closer.

So, it was Moraina, this time. Harry only used my full name when he wanted something.

I put out a hand to keep him at a safe distance. "I don't want to hear it, Harry ."

"There's money to be made with this thing."

"Right, Harry," I said savagely. "Let's hope you live long enough to spend it."

Harry was right, of course. There was money to be made. As far as piracy and smuggling went, the Timeslider offered endless possibilities. For the next few galactic months, we lived solely off profits made using our new device. Harry craved the anarchy of sliding from timeframe to timeframe. He thrived on the danger of existing in a foreign space and time. Living on the edge of disaster was so familiar to me it began to feel like old times in the military.

Until I made a fatal mistake....

I was en route to a pick up fifty vials of Ecstazine, an expensive and often fatal drug that yielded an obscenely high price in our timeframe. My route took me into the most dangerous ports in a Tallus of an alternate timeline. One, of course, in which Tallus had never fought the war, nor been blown into oblivion.

I winked into existence in the bar of that alternate timeline that was much like the one I knew from my early years in the air force. Dingy and rundown, it could have been one of my old haunts, but it wasn't. I couldn't afford to make that mistake. I was on foreign soil, no matter how much it might look like the Tallus I remembered.

My contact had not yet arrived, so I commandeered a table in a shadowed corner and ordered a drink. The brew had an unusual aftertaste, but it was a reasonable brand of Tallusian beer. I was half way through my third glass when a body seated itself in the seat in front of me.

I looked up in expectation. And found myself staring into the green eyes of Harry Kong! My mind raced desperately through all possibilities. Harry was back at the ship, and had promised me solemnly he would remain there. I scanned the almond skinned oval face, noting the thick scar across his cheek that marked him as one of the powerful Kong family of New Terra. He was Harry down to the last detail, and again he was not my Harry, but a Harry of an alternate time. And there was something dreadfully wrong with this Harry.

I felt that uncomfortable prickling at my nape that meant danger.

One thing my newly acquired pirate instincts had given me was the ability to spot a cop a light year away. And everything in this Harry's manner marked him as a man of the law.

The Harry stared back at me, similarly appraising me. He knew me all right, this Harry. A slow smile crept across his face, as if I somehow amused him. I groped in my pocket for the reassuring smoothness of the Timeslider. My finger hesitated above the button.

Harry The Cop grinned in mock pleasantness. "Moraina Keller," he said.

Gods! Despite all my perceived nightmares about the Timeslider, this was something I had never anticipated. I had to get back to the ship. I had to warn Harry. I had to convince him the cursed device was more dangerous than even I had imagined.

My finger hit the return button. But I knew, as I took the first step into oblivion, that Harry The Cop was following me.

I bolted up the ramp of Harry's ship and into the cabin where he was leisurely devouring a bottle of Malvarian whiskey. He looked up, interested, not startled, drawing his gun in the same nonchalant gesture.

"I'm being followed!" I gasped.

The haunted look on my face sent him bolting to his feet. "Who's following you?" he demanded, his expression turning ugly.

"You!" I gasped, but I didn't have time to explain.

I knew he was there before I felt the eerie sensation of an active Timeslider.

Harry stared in disbelief as his double appeared before him, a look of horrid recognition creeping across his face. He struggled with the terrible fascination of confronting his alter-ego and that in this timeline, Harrison Kong, III had devoted his life to the law.

Intrigued, they faced each other for an endless fraction of a second. My Harry smiled. That was a bad sign.

I screamed, "No Harry, leave him to me." But Harry was already lunging at his double, murder doubtlessly on his mind.

Somehow my blaster found its way into my hand. Dumbly, I squeezed the trigger, watching the bolt of energy erupt from the barrel, as if in slow motion and hurl itself at Harry The Cop.

I heard a scream, then the universe shifted. I felt the hurricane of time rushing about me. Then I was standing once again on The Needle's deck, and the Harry who now faced me with undisguised glee on his face, was Harry The Cop.

I choked back the acrid smell of burning flesh, and forced myself to look at the body that lay on the cabin floor, a smoldering stain creeping across his chest.

"You're a good shot, Moraina," the Harry said.

"You switched places!" I murmured thickly, everything was starting to take on a surreal aspect. My brain refused to absorb any of this new information. I had killed Harry, just as I had promised him on the morning after our fateful meeting.

Harry The Cop held up his Timeslider. "Bet you never thought of that."

"No." I shook my head, baffled. He'd done it, the devil. He'd changed places with Harry using his own specially-augmented Timeslider.

"The Police get the best toys ."

I looked at the blaster barrel trained on my head, weighing my options. To stay meant certain death. The Timeslider was still in my hand. I did the only thing left to me. I pushed the button and ran.

CHAPTER FIVE: BEYOND OBLIVION

So, there I was ... Harry dead and the cursed machine that got us into this mess still in my hand. I became good at running in the next few months, winking in and out of otherwheres, looking for a somewhere to call home.

Harry the Cop was good at his job. He could sense me coming before I even pressed the button, but I was fast, using the lightning reflexes that had become second nature in my last life as a warrior.

So when I slid into stomach-wrenching existence in a smoky bar, into a seat before a dark haired man with a thick scar bisecting his right cheek, it took only a fraction of a second to recognize him as a Harry.

"Wait!" the Harry said desperately.

I raised the Timeslider for a quick exit. Something in the tone of his plea made me stay my hand. This was not the Harry I was running from.

Gods, surely one Harry was more than enough trouble!

"Don't go," said the Harry. "After an entrance like that you owe me at least an introduction. Do I know you?"

"I hope not," I said quickly. "I seem to be bad luck for men named Harry. And I've got a price on my head high enough to reach the ozone. So, if you don't mind, I'll be going."

"Hey," said the Harry. And fool that I am, I delayed again. "That's one hell of an introduction. What are you wanted for anyway?"

"Desertion, piracy, possession of illegal goods, and ... for killing you," I watched his eyebrows creep up his forehead. "And a few other things I'm sure you'd rather not know. I really have to leave now...."

"Look," said the Harry. "If it's a place to hide you need, maybe I can help you out."

"Why would you do that?" I asked him, curious in spite of myself. Stupid enough to delay even further.

"It's good for my karma," Harry said with a smile. Fool that I'm beginning to believe I am, I went with him, out of the longing to stay in one place for more than an hour at a time.

"So why did you kill me?" asked Harry as we walked though small sand dunes in the roadway back to the spaceport.

"It was an accident. And, a very long story." I stopped talking. There was no easy way to explain the situation. We were nearing the spaceport. I guessed Harry's ship to be the needle-shaped black craft. It looked powerful, sleek and dangerous. Harry palmed the hatch and the door slid open. I stepped into the shadowed interior.

And froze, as I felt the blaster between my shoulder blades.

I, Moraina Keller, the biggest fool this side of the galaxy, had walked right into this one.

"All right Keller," Harry said acidly. "Hand over the Timeslider.

"So you do know me."

"Oh, I know well enough," Harry said. "You see, in this timeframe I killed you."

"Looks like you'll be getting another chance at it," I said, bluffing to gain a few precious seconds. "You're a lucky guy."

"Just give me the Timeslider," Harry said, pushing the gun deeper into my back. "If you must know it was all a terrible accident. You, were my lover."

"Some sweetheart you turned out to be."

"Moraina, I'm not going to ask you again."

"What are you going to do when the Time Police show up here, hmmm? I'm supposed to be dead in this timeframe."

"I'll think about it, after you've given me my Timeslider."

"Yours?" I asked, despite my better judgment.

"Yes, mine." Harry said. "I invented it."

I wanted to laugh at the unbelievable irony of it all. "My Harry said the man he stole it from was dead...."

"I hope he is," Harry said. "He's the one who stole it from me. I guess it wasn't such a big deal. After all, he'd already stolen my lover."

Just thinking about it was giving me a headache. And there was always the small matter of the gun in my back.

"Now, if you'd be so kind as to hand over my property," Harry said.

"You're most welcome to it." I tossed it to the floor away from me. Harry fumbled to catch it, dropping his guard for half a second, which was long enough for me to draw my gun.

"Don't move," I said. "I wouldn't suggest you race me to the trigger."

Harry raised his hands in the universal posture of surrender. "I wasn't going to hurt you."

"Blasters have a way of doing that," I snapped.

Harry contemplated this sudden reversal of roles. "The Timeslider is rightfully mine," he said in a feeble defense. "Surely it's caused you enough trouble already."

"You'll get no argument from me there," I said, tightening my grip on the gun.

Harry was trying a new tactic. "Am I so different from the Harry Kong you knew? Surely you were...."

"Lovers?" I asked flatly. "I was his bodyguard."

"You were his bodyguard--and you killed him. How quaint."

"And just what do you know about it anyway?" I yelled angrily.

"Oh, I knew a lot about you, Moraina," Harry said quietly. "You loved me. Until you decided to run off with my...."

"Younger brother?" I supplied. I don't know how the thought came to me, but the look on his face told me I'd hit my mark. I thought of my Harry's younger brother, the one who'd wanted to rule the Kong Dynasty so badly he was willing to kill for it.

By killing Harry, however accidentally, I had made his wish come true. That thought was so painful it nearly stole my breath. I dragged my thoughts back to the present and this very different Harry I faced.

"You know nothing about me, Mr. Kong. You knew someone who shared only my face and my name. So let me enlighten you. Harry's brother was no friend of mine. And this Moraina Keller is damned sick of killing!" I choked up as tears welled up behind my eyes. "Gods!" I whispered. "Isn't there peace anywhere in this galaxy?"

I heard a click as Harry thumbed the safety back onto his blaster. "Put the gun down, Moraina," he said gently. "I won't hurt you, I swear."

"Shoot me if you want," I said in resignation. "I really don't care."

Harry held up his empty hands. I holstered my weapon and turned to sit on the nearby bunk, resting my head in my hands. I didn't have to be strong anymore. I was no longer in the military. Hundreds of lives no long hung in the balance of my decisions. Everything was beyond my control. Had been for some time.

Harry was looking at me nervously, as if this outburst of emotion was not in keeping with the Moraina Keller he knew.

"I'd be more than happy to disappear from your life forever," I told him. "That is if I had a home to go to.... But in my timeline Tallus bought itself a permanent place in oblivion.

I was staring at the floor, not wanting to look at Harry, not wanting to be close to anyone just then. I could hear him moving about the tiny cabin, trying to make himself inconspicuous. Finally, he sighed and pressed a spill-proof cup in my hands. I sniffed at it. Tallusian beer.

Maybe Tallus was still here in this timeframe. Maybe we'd never even fought the war. The possibilities were endless. Thinking about it made me dizzy.

"Why are you being nice to me?"

Harry shrugged. "You don't look much like Moraina The Terrible right now."

"Trust me," I said. "I can be plenty nasty when I choose."

"I remember."

I took a gulp of the liquid that was like swallowing fire.

"Now that was impressive," Harry remarked. "I don't know of anyone who can do that without at least wincing.

I laughed. "Ah, but I'm a native. They feed it to us as infants. In the military.... "I stopped, realizing I didn't want to talk about the air force. "So what did you do in this timeframe Harry? Besides invent the gadget that's ruining my life?"

"Since I invented the Timeslider," Harry said unhappily, "my life has been a complete hell." He frowned. "Had I been smart, I would have invented a switch to send me back in time, so I could un-invent the damned thing!" He looked into my eyes, the eyes my Harry used to say were as black as open space.

"You did love him, didn't you?" he whispered finally.

"Most of the time he infuriated me."

That made him laugh. He looked down at the Timeslider that was still in his hand. "I think I'm going to need a bodyguard now that I've got this back. You available?"

"This is too weird."

"Weird?" Harry asked. "It feels ... natural to me."

"I don't have a very good track record."

He laughed. "I'm sure we could work something out. After we vow not to kill each other," he added hastily.

I gave Harry a long, hard look. "Okay," I said holding out my hand. "You've got a deal."

"A toast to our new partnership," he said, retrieving the beer bottle and taking a slug from it.

I raised my glass. "What I don't understand is how I can I occupy a timeframe in which I'm supposed to be dead?"

The fabric of time is stronger than most people think," Harry explained. "And it's not exactly you who inhabited this space. As you said, you aren't the Moraina Keller I knew. Yet, you are enough like her to cause small tremors in the net of time. Tremors strong enough for the Time Police to measure and track us."

"Then as your newly employed bodyguard, I think we've been here too long."

Harry gave me an appraising look. "Well then, let's see how well you do as my copilot."

I followed him to the cockpit, settling in beside him among the numerous banks of equipment. I scanned the multitude of dials and readouts, acquainting myself with the unfamiliar machinery. Harry was waiting for me to make the next move. Out of habit so ingrained I could perform in my sleep, I began to do the preflight check. Harry offered no further instructions, busy with duties of his own.

"This is Your Nightmare requesting take-off clearance."

Odd choice of a name for a ship, I thought. Not that The Needle had been any better.

"I'm sorry, Nightmare," came a disembodied voice from the tower, "I can't give you take-off clearance."

I switched on the outside cameras, hissing as I saw the conglomeration of ships and equipment that now surrounded us.

Harry swore.

"We can't blast our way out," I said. Adding up the odds we'd come out much behind.

Harry cast a quick look at the daunting sight on the view screens. "They want us bad."

"What now?"

"Hug me."

I said, "What?" But I threw my arms around him anyway. Harry reached down to his belt.

I heard a click, and then the world turned inside out.

I came out of it screaming as Harry was taking his thumb off the button. I stamped my feet a few times just to make sure the ground I was standing on was really there.

"You could have warned me."

"You should be used to it."

"Never," I said. "It's unnatural."

"Shh!" Harry clamped a hand over my mouth. "It won't take them long to find us. And you're supposed to be my bodyguard."

I glared at him and drew my blaster.

A bolt of energy grazed the air above our heads. We didn't wait to see who our pursuers were. Harry grasped the Timeslider.

The universe turned upside down again.

This new timeframe was a duplicate of the desert planet we had just briefly visited, but quieter. This time-altered world was as sterile as open space itself. Sand dunes stretched endlessly into the horizon. The only sound came from the wailing wind.

I sat down in the drifting sand in sheer exhaustion.

"What now?"

"I don't know," Harry said, holstering his blaster, but keeping the Timeslider in hand. "They'll be waiting for us back at the ship."

He glanced at me, hoping I would offer some brilliant solution. When I merely shrugged, he resumed fiddling with the Timeslider, twiddling various knobs and dials, closely scrutinizing the small green electronic waves that played across the tiny screen in its middle. The one I'd never been able to understand.

"The guy who modified this thing was a genius," Harry muttered, while the sun beat down on us in scorching waves. "I never would have thought of...."

He looked up at me with something close to terror in his eyes. "You've been jumping blind with this thing for six months. You could have killed yourself."

Obviously, the threat of death was something new to him. "I almost have, many times."

"No wonder the Time Police want it so bad. The possibilities of this thing are infinite. Still there must be some timeframes they can't track us to. If I could only figure out how to access them."

"In the name of all gods, Harry. It's getting hot here!"

Harry gave me the kind of impatient gaze you'd give a small child, then sighed.

He pressed the Timeslider's button. I grasped my fleeing stomach and whirled across time after him.

The timeframe in which we landed was a plastic nightmare. Melted-looking trees drooped from smooth black rock, which themselves oozed a slimy substance. The horizon was curtained by inky mist. It was surprising we could breathe.

"Harry, I'm sticking to this stuff!"

"So am I," he snapped, still staring at the green wavelengths on his Timeslider screen. "I rather like the thought of them having to search around this place for us."

He dialed a few more knobs. "The more we jump, the harder it'll be for them to track us."

"Can we try for someplace a little more civilized this time?"

"Sure," Harry said and activated the Timeslider again.

I screamed as my stomach lurched to my throat. In the echoing corridors of time I heard Harry laughing.

We lay low for awhile, up the time winds from the Time Police, constantly dodging to stay ahead of them. We knew it was all going to fall through eventually. It just picked the worst possible time.

* * * *

Returning from a routine errand, I knew something was wrong as soon as I stepped into the empty airlock.

"Harry?" I called, my finger hovering above the button of the timeslider.

"Hold it right there," said a voice from my nightmares.

There he was in the flesh. Harry the Cop, down to the last detail.

"Moraina," said Harry, from behind him. "I'd like you to meet my brother."

Damn it to all the hells, I thought. He'd fooled me. Harry The Cop wasn't Harry after all, but some strange alter-ego of his younger brother, Drachen-Jin.

It had that sick type of deja vu from a nightmare where you know what's coming and you can't escape. And then it got worse. A shadow moved.

I came face to face with myself. Only in this timeframe, Moraina Keller was also a cop!

"You told me I was dead in this timeframe," I yelled at Harry.

"You are," he hollered back. He sounded almost apologetic. "This is someone new!"

It was just too much to take in. Just how many versions of me and Harry and his evil twin were there? No wonder the fabric of time was strained to the breaking point! Something inside me snapped. I dropped and rolled into her, drawing my blaster, and fired. I fumbled for the Timeslider. As I punched the jump button, I heard one of the Harrys cry out in pain. Keller the Cop swore.

Then the universe turned over.

I came out of it running, into gray, swirling mist. At once I knew I had not made a normal timeslide. Time warped inward on itself, buckling and twisting, but I ran on, afraid to jump again and make it all worse.

Out of the gloom Keller the Cop appeared, hot on my heels, as we ran along the non-existent road somewhere in time. Behind her came a Harry.

I stumbled, caught myself and kept running.

Which Harry had I hit? I wondered desperately. I risked another backward look but in the fog I couldn't tell.

A bolt of laser-fire tore through the air above me.

When I turned, he was bending over the still body of Moraina Keller the Time Cop.

I stared at him, dumbly, as he holstered his blaster. Harry grinned.

"Now that was fancy shooting," he said, obviously pleased with himself.

"Not bad," I said. "Even I couldn't have hit a target changing timelines, and I've had a lot more practice than you."

"You weren't so bad yourself."

"Your brother?" I asked.

"You laid him flat just before you winked out ." He said it simply enough, but his voice cracked with emotion. "I jumped Keller as she tried to track you. Luckily, her timeslider beam pulled me through."

"I'm glad it's you," I said leaning against him. "It is you, isn't it?" I desperately hoped so.

"It's me," he said.

"Sorry about your brother."

He shrugged, the sorrow betraying itself on his face. "Well, it was either him or me."

"I told my Harry once, he'd have to kill him."

"You always did have a habit of stating the obvious," he snapped.

"Sometimes the obvious is anything but," I said. But I was thinking about Dammos 4. "Do I get a raise for this?"

Harry started to answer, but just then the strained timelines snapped and time whirled on itself in a cosmic blender. I clung to Harry as color became sound, and sound swirled about us in a hideous rainbow.

We came at last to rest on a rocky hillside overlooking a busy spaceport in the valley below.

"Where are we now?"

"We've been thrown," Harry said. "Whether across time, or into the past or future I don't know. We strained the fabric of time with our constant time jumping. We interfered with the very components of time by killing off our alter-egos in three timelines. Time is resilient. It will heal, but this might take centuries to straighten itself out."

I looked down at the alien spaceport below as a craft tore through the sky above me.

"What now?"

"I don't know," Harry said. "We can't risk another time jump."

"Can we stay here?" I asked.

"We don't have a choice," Harry said. "Give me the Timeslider."

I handed it over.

Harry looked longingly at his invention.

Then he tossed it high in the air, drew his blaster and fired. The Timeslider glittered in the sunlight, then exploded in a myriad of pieces.

We stood in silence for a long time.

"Doubt our money's any good here," I said finally.

"Probably not."

"Then we better start working on dinner now. I'm starved."

Harry looked doubtful. Then he smiled and took the first step down the hillside.

"About that raise," I called after him.

By then Harry was far ahead of me.

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