The Jacks had saved Cemerteus. If you grew up in Cemerteus, you knew that from the time you could talk. Four Titans had come to the town, trying to kidnap the humans who lived there. But the Jacks had been ready, and they had fought the Titans, and could have killed them – and the Titans knew it. They had surrendered and retreated to their ship.

Idon Agaser had wanted to be a Jack since he first heard the story. Someone strong, but mostly, someone brave, and someone smart – because the Titans were giants, so strength alone couldn’t defeat them. To defeat them, you needed to outthink them. To sneak around their defenses. To wait for the exact moment that they were at their most vulnerable, and then to strike out against them.

He had grown up with a singular goal, and he had achieved it. He considered going to officer training school, but instead chose to become a soldier – because the people with stripes on their arms were the ones who did the work. He’d worked his way up to Palemst Seniv 1, the equivalent of a senior sergeant; he had been a part of the 2^nd Jacks, and he had loved it.

But after four Imperial years, he had come to believe that there was a greater mission out there, beyond Avalon. Avalon was safe, after all; the only Titans on the planet were friendlies, and the Battle in Defense of Paletine was the only time that the Jacks had actually faced a live enemy.

But out there…his human brothers and sisters were still held as pets. They were not free. And they had no Jacks to defend them from the giants.

So he had left the Avalonian Guard, and joined with the Aenur Foundation as a security officer. And it was difficult work, but gratifying, and he had been proud of that work. Glad of that work. Part of a team.

Until Pratov.

He had been caught in Pratov City, caught by anti-liberation Titans, and dumped in an HOA in a small suburb far from the initial protest. He hadn’t worried at first – the Aenur Foundation was well-aware that this was a tactic, and they canvassed HOAs immediately after debacles like that one to find the humans who’d been captured. He figured he would be rescued soon enough.

He was not.

Now, Idon would tell you, when recounting this story, that the HOA deliberately placed him with the abusive couple that “adopted” him; this would not be true. In fact, they would have been horrified to find out about the abuse he would suffer at their hands from the time he was adopted to the time he escaped. They never would, though; he managed to escape after the couple had moved to Stanasa City, in an entirely separate star system.

He was by that point blind in one eye, with scars on his face, and pain in his oft-broken legs that never went away. He had not been able to escape the HOA collection van, and soon enough he was back in a shelter, full of rage and shame.

When Xyly had looked him over, he’d tried to claw at her. He was hoping to be put down, but in the meantime, he was hoping to draw just a little bit of blood. He wanted her to pay. He wanted them all to pay.

But she had put on a crooked smile, and said, “The HOA staff told me you say you’re from Avalon. They say you say you trained to kill Titans. That they shouldn’t put you with any Titans, because you say you’ll kill them.”

“It’s not a joke,” he’d said to her. “Don’t adopt me. I will kill you.”

She had just smiled a bit wider, and said, “That’s exactly the attitude I’m looking for. I have an idea for a project. Tell me, killer from Avalon…would you like the opportunity to make good on your threats?”

Nonull leaned up against the baseboard, remembering that conversation well.

She’d offered him the chance to kill Titans. And yes, they were mostly Titans who would have agreed with his comrades in the Aenur Foundation…but where had those comrades been? When he was howling in pain, what good had their platitudes done him?

The only solution was to destroy them. The whole lot of them. And as he’d killed the weak-willed Titans, he’d come to realize that this was the way to get to that final clash. The idealists would work for peace, for equality, but that was a lie; the truth was that they were enemies, and that only one of them could dominate.

The Jacks had saved Cemerteus. Humans could fight Titans if they needed to. They could defeat the Titans. They could kill the Titans.

They could kill them all.

(Though not, perhaps, before he and Xyly had gone off on their own.)

He steeled himself; he did not want to kill Rixie Carey. She had believed that humans could stand as the equal of Titans. He had learned how to take down a Titan by training with her. She was not a bad person.

But her existence helped to prop up the rest of the Titans, and they deserved nothing but death.

As he heard his target begin to snore, lightly, he began to run the mental timer. He would be patient. He would wait for her to get to a deep sleep. He would wait for the exact moment that she was at her most vulnerable, and then strike out against her.

* * *

“All right. No touching,” Margu said, holding his right arm on Liss as he hit a few keys on the helm. “There,” he said, disconnecting a battery from his arm and swapping in another. “Localized jammers take way too much power; it’s handy, don’t get me wrong, but after an hour or so you start to get that needles and knives feeling – anyhow, you’re now being jammed by the Retchenu, so don’t get any ideas. And don’t think that I won’t blast you. I owe you from last time.”

“First off, I only tried to kill you because you tried to kill me,” Liss said. “Remember? There was a whole discussion about this. Don’t tell me that after saying you wouldn’t take it personally, you took it personally.”

“Oh no, I don’t take it personally. I know it was business,” Margu said, gesturing to the jump seat by the door to the cabin. Liss flipped it down and sat, as he sat in the pilot’s chair, and spun to face her. “Doesn’t mean I don’t owe you. Kapskrasi?” he asked, grabbing a bottle from a side panel.

“I’m pretty sure stowing a bottle of kapskrasi in the cockpit is against regs. And sure,” Liss said, accepting a glass. “Also, did you refit the cockpit with Diaxe controls? How? And why?”

“’Why’ is easy – they were what I could barter for. ‘How’ is ‘with great difficulty,’ but it works. Not that you have to worry about such things. Jeju Aztar. You finally got rid of the Akelois.”

“I’ll never get rid of the Akelois,” Liss said, taking a swig form her glass. “They’ll bury me in it. The White Shaar is a flagship for my fleet. It worked for this job.”

“Still,” Margu said, “you ain’t scraping by. What’s it like, going soft?”

Liss shook her head. “Don’t try to bait me, Margu. Or I’ll mention that your face has seen better days.”

Margu gave her a crooked grin, and raised his glass in a mocking toast. “All the bugs wanted to do was eat my eyes. They weren’t unreasonable; I mean, no one wanted to eat my brain. Of course, I gave them plenty of good intelligence. They say it helped them a great deal on Tau Ceti. At least before their Hive Ship blew up.”

“Who says that?” Liss asked.

“No, no. I’ve kidnapped you, you don’t get to ask the probing questions,” Margu said, setting his glass down. “I’m already going to have to change my name and my ship’s registry again because of you, though at least this trip is netting me enough to do that. Of course, if I blew your head off, I could probably buy the Akelois at auction; it would be at the edge of what I could afford, but I could pay it off. And it would be nice to have a rec area.”

“You’re not going to kill me, Margu,” Liss said.

“I’ve tried to before,” he noted. Liss shrugged.

“I know you could kill me. I know you probably would if you thought it wouldn’t cause issues for you. But there are cameras all over Jutuneim Kaleva Starbase; those cameras show you directing me to your ship. And you know who my primary client is, you know she isn’t going to just let this go.”

“She’ll already be coming after me for delivering the assassins, Liss. I don’t know if you and Tarsuss are friends or not, but I know that she’s not going to let the assassination of Rixie Carey go. So while I’m not going to kill you for no good reason, don’t think I won’t do it if you give me one; I was hoping to get in and out before anyone noticed me, but now that the cover’s blown, well…given what I’ve already been paid, I went into this with my eyes open.”

Liss had been drinking this in quietly, leaning back in the stiff plastic jumpseat, watching Margu. He looked very tired and very satisfied, like a man who has very nearly finished a marathon.

“Pryvani still employs Yvenna Mirendy, despite Yvenna having a hand in the murder of her father,” Liss said. “It’s not altruistic, but it’s not death, either. If you were willing to blow the plot open, let the authorities know…she is a pragmatist. And she would be happy to reward you, even after everything.”

“There are two people in the universe that you do not cross,” Margu said. “And I am not going to cross the second. Evento get the other to forgive. Besides,” he said, “I don’t mind hurting Tarsuss. Not many people get the chance. If that’s my legacy, I can live with it.”

* * *

Alex took the lift down from the observation tower in the habitat. It was funny; the tiny habitat he was in was bigger in square footage than the suite they’d booked Rixie in, at least by scale. It was not as posh, of course, but it was utilitarian and comfortable, and even had a Nutramixit droid hooked up in case he wanted a drink or light snack.

He was worried about Rixie, but he was always worried about Rixie, even when he knew she didn’t need him to be. She had almost fully kicked off her blankets, which he knew from experience meant she was sleeping fitfully. She had taken the two sleeping pills, and that would at least keep her unconscious, but that didn’t mean she was sleeping easy.

He knew why she wasn’t. He was quite aware of why she was worried; he was worried too. He knew she was right to be concerned about what this would do to them, what this would do to Asteria. Ryan had been human, and adopted from the street. He had grown up knowing that there was a big world out there that wasn’t safe and wasn’t his to master, and being Ryan, he’d gone out to try to protect everyone from it.

Asteria was growing up Titan-sized, the daughter of a senator and a flag Imperator, living down the hall from the richest woman in the known universe who also happened to be her brother’s mother-in-law and her mother’s best friend. (Lemm was always Rixie’s official best friend, and Rixie loved Lemm like a sister, but he thought Rixie loved Pryvani like a best friend, and that probably made her the closer of the two.)

Anyhow, he was worried about how to keep his daughter’s ego from growing out of control, and that was before she was going to be a princess. He didn’t want his daughter to grow up expecting hand-outs, or worse, thinking she was better than anyone else. His wife was not the woman she was because she had royal blood; Rixie was Rixie because she’d grown up an orphan, one who was determined to prove herself to everyone, and woe unto anyone who crossed her. And she’d grown up that way because she had a heart that was as soft as a down comforter, easily wounded whenever anyone got through her defenses – and expansive enough for a woman twenty times her size.

He didn’t want Asteria to want for anything, and he didn’t want her to suffer for no reason – it was more insulting when rich people pretended not to be rich than when they just accepted it. But he wanted her to get just a bit of her mother’s edge, a bit of her sense that the universe was good and full of wonderful people who deserved love and respect – but that did not make it safe.

But while Alex worried about this, he did not share his worries with his wife. Rixie was terrified enough by the role that had been thrust upon her. His job as her husband was to shoulder as much of that as he could. To reassure her that she could make it through, that they could make it through. There would be time, in years to come, for him to bring up his concerns. But right now, Rixie needed him to be strong for her.

He smiled involuntarily; ironic, given their relative strength. Hell, ironic given their strength even if they were the same size. But there are many types of strength, and Alex had an abundance of the most important kind.

* * *

Nonull had waited for her to start snoring and stop flailing – he wanted her in a deep sleep. Finally, her breathing had slowed, and better yet, the light in the small habitat had gone out – meaning her husband was probably going to sleep as well.

He crept from his hiding place, moving slowly toward his target. He tapped his wrist twice, signaling that he had begun his attack. His wrist buzzed once in acknowledgement. He knew that there would be no more communication for the next hour.

It was time.

* * *

Trora shifted her posture and stifled a yawn. She didn’t mind that this job was easy; any guard that wants trouble isn’t a very smart guard. And she had enough experience with tough jobs to make her appreciate the easy ones all the more.

But that didn’t mean that the easy jobs were the most fun.

“Gwork, daignma?”

Trora tapped her earpiece. She looked down the hallway toward Sebb, who was guarding the opposite stairway from her. He tapped his earpiece, and she could hear him talking, but was not picking anything up on comms.

“Central, comm check?” she said.

There was a pause, and so she repeated herself. The earpiece crackled, and then the voice of Karral Vilum came through.

“Central, Trora, looks like we had a channel skip. Sebb, you copy?”

“Copy, Central,” Sebb said. “Erod, Iđka?”

“Copy,” both Erod and Iđka said, within moments of each other.

Trora frowned. “I’m not getting a ping from the suite. Might not have skipped channels with the rest of us. Should I check on it?”

She could hear Vilum’s gears turning; even knowing that Carey was a guard by training and would probably forgive being woken up, none of them really wanted to bother the principal over what was likely just a failed channel swap. Still….

“Give it fifteen minutes, mark now. If it hasn’t connected, wake Rixie up. In the meantime, Sebb, you talk to the guard at the suite, and Trora, you check in with the Royal Guard’s comms; see what they’re seeing.”

“Copy that,” Trora said, nodding to Sebb. She turned, and headed for a room at the end of the hallway.

* * *

Alex grumbled; he had been planning to sign off on a few budget reports before bed, but he was unable to connect to his work environment through his pad, and his gool was not working any better. He didn’t want to bother anyone – this wasn’t a big deal, he had a couple titan weeks to take care of it, and he almost decided to let it go…but it occurred to him that a net outage could also impact security, and so he decided to call Karral to give him a heads-up about it.

Three times, he called, and three times, the call failed.

Alex did not have his wife’s paranoia; he was generally an optimist, and that had pulled him through many a bad time. But he had been with Rixie for 165 years, and he had learned from her that sometimes they’re really out to get you.

Trying to tell himself that there was nothing going on, just a comms fluke, he walked to the door of the habitat and stepped out onto the table. Rixie was still snoring away, and there was nobody in the room; that was a relief. If someone was coming to get Rixie, no matter how stealthy they were, he would surely notice….

Alex stopped his train of thought dead. He had heard a sound. A small, distant sound. A rustling. It was coming from the other side of Rixie, from the other side of the bed.

On the other side of Rixie, on the other side of the bed, Nonull continued to pull himself up. He would move quickly. This was not a time for subtlety; Rixie Tam would kill him quickly if she woke. He had to get to her, kill her, and get away. There was no time to waste.

* * *

Trora entered the hotel room, which had been converted to a comms center. “Hello,” she said, “we’re having a comms issue; our motion sensors in the suite are offline.”

“Ours are fine,” the woman at the workstation said. “Must be a fault in your equipment.”

“We had a channel skip,” Trora said. “Did you….”

“No,” the woman said.

Trora frowned. Clearly, this guard was not interested in helping, so she said, “Central, Trora, not getting any help from their comms team, recommend we go in to check….”

“Comms are fine!” the guard said, standing. “I’m not going to let you bother the principal because your gear is bad.”

“Not your call, Ms….”

“Tuva Errisdat, and it is my call. Errisdat to Senkeir, can you guard the door? Our friends are talking about bothering the principal, we can’t justify that.”

Trora decided she was done with this conversation. Turning on her heel, she said, “Central, I think we need to check on the principal,” she said. “Sounds like the guards are going to stop us.”

Karral swore, and said, “I’ll talk with Niebal. Until then, you and Sebb go to the door and wait, as soon as we’re cleared through, I want you to go.”

“You don’t think I’m overreacting?” she asked, as she entered the hallway.

“I pay you to overreact,” Karral said.

“We’re not done here!” Errisdat called after Trora. “You are not cleared to go in!” Seeing that it would do no good, she hit another button on her workstation, and said, “Errisdat to Brantr, we have a situation.”

* * *

“It should be any time now,” Margu said, calmly. “And I’ve decided to make you a deal. If the assassins fail, I’ll let you go. At that point, there will be plenty of evidence. They won’t need you to tie them to me. I’ll head to the Kokinit Restriction Zone and take my chances. But if they succeed…well, if they succeed, I’m going to have to figure out what to do with you, but it probably involves killing you and spacing your body. At that point, you know far too much to be left alive.”

“I only know there’s an assassination attempt, and that should be obvious,” Liss said. “Especially if Rixie dies.”

“You would think, wouldn’t you?” Margu said. “No, if this goes well, nobody will know there was an assassination attempt at all. Rixie will die, and nobody will know how or why it happened. And your disappearance will be odd, but given your history, well…you probably made a few enemies along the way.”

“And a few friends,” Liss said, finishing her drink. “And that made it worth it.”

* * *

Alex considered his options. He knew from experience that his wife would be almost impossible to wake at this point in her slumber, at least at his size. He had brought along the portable holo unit, but it was across the room, and he would either be rushing to get it by foot – which would take too much time – or he’d use his hoverscooter, which would announce his presence clearly, and still probably would take too much time.

He had one advantage; the person climbing the bed (and it was a person climbing the bed; the sounds he heard during breaks in snoring had convinced him of it) did not know that he knew that they were there.

He turned on night vision assistance on his gool, walked to the edge of the table, and waited for his wife to snore once more.

He leaped onto the bed, tumbling and rolling, landing not far from her stomach. He got to his feet, and wishing he had any kind of weapon, he started climbing her pajama shorts, reaching the summit of her hip in record time.

He sunk into it, feeling the warmth of her flesh beneath the fabric. She dwarfed him so much, but he was fine with that; she was the size she was, he thought, because a smaller person could not hold her enormous heart.

He saw the person, who had summitted the bed at thigh-level. He had unholstered a weapon, and was eyeing Rixie, looking toward the mop of hair that lay on the pillow.

It looked to be a man, one younger and fitter and much-better-armed than Alex.

But he’d attacked a Titan to save Rixie. A strong human didn’t scare him.

The man walked toward Rixie’s bottom, still focused up-body.

Alex crouched, and then he leapt.