Was Once a Hero (43 page)

Here are the first three chapters of the next book in
the series, Fearful Symmetry, on sale now.

FEARFUL SYMMETRY

The second Book in the Shasti and Fenaday Chronicles

By Edward McKeown

Prologue

The war against the
Conchirri irrevocably altered the Confederacy of Seven Species, as the Seven
collided with and destroyed the eighth race in known space. The
Conchirri,
usually called the Xenophobes, possessed only one
reaction to any other life form, genocidal fury. They could not be understood,
reasoned with, or intimidated, only destroyed. It was a hard lesson for the
Confederacy, but they learned it well. The Second Sector War ended the
Conchirri and, with them, the old Confederacy which had been little more than a
trading association. The Seven now looked at the stars warily, with weapons to
hand and a grim promise of “never again.” They had looked into an abyss and it
had looked into them. In that much they’d become the thing they'd destroyed.

Much else disappeared
in that war, lives, hopes and loves, including Lt. Commander Lisa Fenaday and
her scoutship the C.S.S.
Blackbird
.
Her husband, Robert Fenaday, went nearly mad with grief. Flying a captured
frigate renamed
Sidhe
, he roamed
space, searching for his wife and killing Conchirri mercilessly. Shasti
Rainhell, a genetically engineered assassin rescued by him on one voyage,
joined him in his search. They became a team, until the war ended and the
market for privateers dried up.

In
despair, Fenaday landed on Mars, only to find himself drafted by Lisa’s former
boss, a man identified only as Mandela. With Rainhell and two new companions,
Ace-pilot Telisan and the ancient scholar Duna, Fenaday voyaged to the
devastated world of Enshar. They defeated the ancient evil that had scoured the
planet clean of intelligent life.
Sidhe’s
survivors and Fenaday, who finally laid the ghost of his wife to rest, began to
pick up the pieces of their lives. But the past has a way of reaching out for
you...

“You drive a hard bargain,” Gianni Martini said. His elegant face showed
some of the strain of the marathon session.

Shasti Rainhell ignored the arms merchant’s comment. She looked out from
the balcony toward the skyline of Old London, her back to the buzz of the
reception that the Martini-Henry Company had arranged in her honor. London’s
restored beauty made little impression on the colonist, though it was thousands
of years older than any human city she’d visited before. Shasti had come to buy
weapons for the re-established
Shamrock
line of
New Eire
. The war with the
Conchirri might be over, but space remained far from safe.

“I take it that we have a deal then,” she said. “You’ll send the
contract over to my hotel, and I will have our solicitors review it.”

Martini waved his arms in a grand gesture. “As you wish. Shall we have a
drink to seal the bargain?” He gestured to a nearby waiter. The smartly dressed
servant presented the platter of champagne with a flourish. Gianni plucked two
tulip-shaped glasses. He presented one to her, looking up at her with a speculative
gaze.

He wasn’t the only one. Even in cosmopolitan London, Shasti attracted
attention. At six foot-nine, she towered over the partygoers. She was
marginally aware of men staring at her with interest, captivated by her
flawless ivory skin and jade-green eyes. Women also stared, though some of the
looks held a touch of envy. In Olympian society, where genetic perfection was
social status, Shasti was an aristocrat of the highest
order,
for all that she had lived as a hunted fugitive for most of her life.

Shasti took the glass and drank. Champagne was new to her life, though
she could easily afford such luxury now. The success of the starship
Sidhe’
s desperate voyage to Enshar had
made her wealthy. Money meant only two things to Shasti: security and independence.

“I’m not used to looking up at a woman. Are all Olympian colonists so
tall?”

“We’re bred for size and strength,” she replied, knowing where the
conversation was leading. Business was over. Gianni Martini was handsome,
wealthy,
powerful
and he saw himself bedding her,
adding to the long collection of women he’d doubtless had.

“And all so beautiful?” he asked.

Shasti controlled the stab of annoyance.
Predictable,
she thought.
How
many times have I heard the like from men?
“Beauty is relative. Sometimes
it’s even a weapon.” A gust of wind stirred her long black hair, and she closed
the seal on the severe crimson jacket she wore.
 

“Thank you for the champagne,” she said. “Please send for my security.”

“What? You would deprive us of your company so soon?” Martini made a
gesture of mock horror.

“Our business is concluded,” she said. “I have other things to
accomplish for the Shamrock.”

“Ah, you mean for Robert Fenaday.”

Shasti’s jade-green eyes narrowed. She didn’t like the sound of his name
on Martini’s lips.

Martini edged closer. “He is far away and he doesn’t own you.”

“It is as well for you that he is a long way away,” Shasti whispered.
“And no one, no one owns me.”

Martini saw his hopes of an exotic conquest fade, and the pleasant mien
slipped. A retort died on his lips as he looked into her eyes.
Don’t push me, little man,
she thought.
I’ve killed more men than are in this
building.
 

“The contracts will be in your suite by morning,” he said. “I’ll have my
assistant attend to it.” He started to turn his back to her, but some instinct
stopped him and he backed away carefully. Shasti laid down her empty glass and
strode from the room, people spilling out of her way. A limousine, and her
hired security, awaited her at the entranceway. In minutes she was back at the
Dunhill hotel.

Hours later, Shasti stalked out of the quaint but expensive Dunhill,
wandering through the streets of London, confused and angry. She knew she
should have stayed in her secure hotel room preparing for the next day’s
meetings. It would have been sensible, but after a few hours the room became
oppressive, cage-like. Restlessness struck with full force and drove her into
the streets.

Martini’s comment had pulled off a scab. Robert did not own her, but
once she had been property, a human not selectively bred—but made. Her creator,
Jalgren Pard, headed the House of Denshi Assassins on Olympia. In the labs of
the Order of Geneticists, Pard fashioned the template that gave rise to
Shasti’s existence. In designing her enhanced body, he endowed her with
capabilities too near his own. The miscalculation nearly cost the master
assassin his life when she escaped. She had lived free since, working on the
wrong side of the law with the only talents she had.

Now, a Confederate pardon shielded her from all her past crimes and the
law sided with her. Still, life remained dangerous for an enemy of the Denshi
order.

I wonder what Robert is doing now,
she thought. She pictured Fenaday, sturdy, shorter than
her, as most men were. He was nearly ten years older with a pleasant if not
handsome face with his dark-brown hair and green eyes.

They’d fought about their future the night before she left New Eire, a
subject usually raised by him. Shasti rarely thought beyond the day, turning
aside his attempts to do so. In truth she could not even form a picture of her
future life; it was so far out of her experience. She found the closeness of
their relationship alternately exhilarating and frightening. Pard had designed
and raised her to need no one. Now she felt an absence. Letters and
holo-messages from Fenaday helped, but they also emphasized the change in her.
She felt incomplete and vulnerable in a way she couldn’t understand and wasn’t
sure she could risk.

“No one owns me,” she said to herself. “No one.” She pushed thoughts of
Robert and the disturbing complication of her feelings for him out of her mind.
I belong to myself.

She passed the night as she had in her mercenary days, in darkened bars
and clubs. Shasti drank excessively, seeking distraction, still moody and
irritated, but she didn’t experiment with other drugs. Alcohol, her body could
shrug off by an act of will and manipulated chemistry.

A woman approached her in a club, her long blonde hair spilling down her
back. She was blue-eyed, lithe, with a well-toned body not much concealed by
her dress.

“Hello,” she said, looking Shasti over in a fashion she usually received
from men. Women had expressed such interests before. Shasti had never responded
to it. This time she welcomed any distraction from her thoughts.

“Hello,” Shasti replied coolly.

“Ah,” the woman said. “I thought your voice would be lower. I like it
this way. It’s musical.” She moved close to Shasti, brushing against her.
Shasti quelled the urge to knock her flying. People did not casually touch her.
“Buy you a drink? My name is Sandara.”

“I’ll buy,” Shasti replied. She wondered if the woman could be part of a
trap, but Shasti was not known to be interested in women, making Sandara a poor
choice for bait. It should be safe, perhaps even save her from her present
mood.

A lot of
drinks
later they ended up at Sandara’s apartment. Shasti felt as drunk as she could
remember being and willfully refused to use her body’s defenses to shed it.
Shasti threw her jacket on the floor and, with Sandara’s eager help, quickly
shed the rest of her clothes.

Sandara slipped out of
what little she wore, then stepped back to look at Shasti. “My god, you have a
fantastic body.”

“Quiet,” Shasti said.
She leaned forward and swept the smaller woman to her, turning and pressing her
to the wall. Her lips met Sandara’s full, sensuous ones.

“Easy, big girl,”
Sandara said with a quick nervous laugh. “Not so rough, please.”

Shasti eased her grip
on the smaller blonde, and Sandara’s smooth, taut, body slid down against her
own. Shasti bent her head down, and Sandara’s eager tongue darted into her
mouth as her hands roamed over Shasti’s body. Her legs came up to wrap around
Shasti’s waist.

After a minute Shasti
stopped, drawing a shaky breath. “Bedroom,” she demanded.

“Second door on the
right,” Sandara gasped.

Shasti carried the
slender woman toward the bedroom. Sandara laid her head on Shasti’s shoulder.
Her long soft blonde hair mixed with Shasti’s own night black.

“You’re so strong,”
Sandara whispered.

Shasti said nothing but
tumbled them onto the huge bed she found inside the door, quieting Sandara with
her mouth. She wanted neither to talk nor to think. She found her lips on the
other woman’s small, firm breasts, so soft compared to a man’s. Fenaday’s chest
hairs always tickled her nose when she did this. She thrust the errant thought
aside.
No thinking.
She tried to lose herself in the
other woman’s soft sighs of pleasure.

Her fingers explored Sandara’s taut, quivering body, followed by her
tongue. She decided she must be doing it right as Sandara’s breath began to
come shorter and shorter. Finally Sandara arched her back and cried out, her
thighs clasping Shasti with startling strength.

Shasti rolled over and Sandara slid on top of her. “My turn,” she said
with a mischievous grin. She kissed Shasti passionately, starting with her lips
and drifting to her nipples, then lower.

Shasti shifted, wishing for Sandara to find the right spot, the place
where Robert would touch her without being asked. She stroked Sandara’s head.
If she didn’t slip her fingers through the long hair she could almost pretend
it was him.
Stop,
she said to
herself,
concentrate.

It took some time, but fantasy and Sandara’s flicking tongue brought her
to a small climax. It satisfied Sandara, who moved up to play more. Shasti went
with it.

Sandara told her vividly what she wanted. Shasti’s hard body seemed to
drive her wild.
Well,
thought Shasti,
if I decide to do something besides
killing people, I’ll have at least one other talent.