Free The Only Game in the Galaxy by Paul Collins Page A

going?’
    ‘GIGO,’ said Hatsu.
    ‘Pardon?’
    ‘GIGO.’
    Jeera blinked. It was an ancient computer term. Garbage in, garbage out. ‘What’s that to do with me?’ she asked. She’d soon find out.
    After descending a dozen levels and traversing the equivalent of five city blocks, Hatsu led Jeera into the main kitchen that fed the hungry Fortress. Ignoring the staff, she went to the rear of the kitchen, stopping at an opening in the wall. Inside was a smooth sloping tunnel.
    ‘I suggest you go feet first,’ she said to Jeera.
    ‘You’re kidding, right?’
    ‘Either you jump or I throw you in. Your choice. We don’t have all day.’
    ‘Are you coming too?’
    ‘Nope. I have things to do. Speaking of which, it’s time for you to go home.’
    ‘But – what do I do when I get out?’
    ‘Someone will meet you.’
    A chef stalked over to them. Hatsu glanced at the slicer the man wielded. ‘What you pair up to?’ the man demanded.
    Hatsu drew her blaster. ‘Back off,’ she said.
    ‘Who’s going to meet me?’ Jeera insisted, ignoring the chef who had now decided he had work to do. She sounded nervous.
    ‘I have no idea. But this is not a trick, Jeera. You’ve been coded at the highest level: protect at all costs . Now go.’
    Jeera took a deep breath, grabbed the upper lip of the hole, and slid her legs into the tunnel. She gave Hatsu one last nervous look then let go.
    ‘Sayonara,’ said Hatsu and turned to find a dozen high-powered pulse rifles trained on her.
    ‘What took you guys so long?’
    Sasume stepped forward. ‘Why, you did, Anneke Longshadow.’
    Anneke, aka Hatsu Kaan, blinked once, then three times, then once more. It was a signal. Almost immediately a dull muffled explosion sounded in the distance and the lights went out. Sasume spat an order and the pulse rifles opened up, blasting the space in front of the garbage chutes and lighting up the dark kitchen with a staccato strobing effect that turned everything into slow motion.
    When the lights came back on, Anneke was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Sasume.

    Anneke, oddly and disquietingly startled at the use of her real name, ran lightly along a steel girder high up under the roof of a cavernous space. Below her lay a docking bay: small space cruisers, scout ships and patrol vessels dotted the floor of the bay, at one end of which was a huge oblong mouth open to the night sky and veiled by the faintest shimmer of a high-intensity deflector field. This was the famous Armoured Cavern, reputedly the location of the last bloody stand by Commander Quizko shortly before he betrayed the Old Empire, hastening its doom.
    But Anneke wasn’t interested in the Armoured Cavern or its history, not right now, not under the mission-intensifying effect of neuronosis. She was interested in the tall, stout and very recognisable figure on the docking bay floor ordering hunt-kill teams – some hired hit-mercs – to find Anneke Longshadow and remove her head.
    Anneke smiled at that. If she had a credit for every time someone had …
    Uh-oh. Bodanis was leaving. He stomped off across the floor towards his personal drop tube, followed by his bodyguard hurrying to keep up. Anneke moved quickly back to the bank of tubes, located Bodanis’ dedicated one, and activated the Dyson scooper she’d previously installed in the drop tube. A tiny red eye blinked once. It was ready.
    Down below, Bodanis’ lead bodyguard stepped into the drop tube and was ‘sucked up’ by the field. Another bodyguard stepped in. Same thing. Then Bodanis. The remaining four bodyguards followed in quick succession.
    Anneke carefully removed the scooper, moved to a maintenance access hatch, and climbed through.
    Twenty minutes later, after thoroughly checking every frequency, she unlocked the door of an ambassadorial suite and stepped cautiously inside, relocking the door behind her.
    Sitting in a chair, immobilised by shaped blocking fields, was Sasume. On the floor at her feet,