Sifu Bao lopes lightly across the massive outer structure of Armstrong Base, the naked stars of Andromeda reflecting off the glastic of her air mask. Sifu Bao's feet and hands imperceptibly adhering and releasing from the gargantuan aluminum structure in a rapid staccato - like a muted drum roll. Thus begins the symphony of death, with Bao playing the lead role.
Bao leaps gracefully into an airlock, one of a dozen situated at the outermost points of the super structure, the bored operator not even registering the temporary blinding of the stars by a solid black encased body. Slipping a fabricated worker's badge into the slot, the airlock begins to cycle. The operator, now alert, stares into his screen, unable to make out anything in or attached to the airlock. The outer door sealed and chamber pressurized, the inner door begins to open, and an ornate but deadly sharp katana glides through the opening, so quickly the operator mistakes the wielder as having actually cut through the door.
The operator needs no encouragement to sit back down, hands shakily rising in front of him. Bao nods curtly and jogs off down the hallway, confident the operator will not sound an alarm.
Bao rounds a corner, making no more sound than a space rat, a grotesque child of earth rats and hundreds of years of space radiation. Bao ducks into a narrow alcove on the right, simultaneously activating her chameleon skin suit and her forearm display of the station's map. Next to the display, the bold tattoo of a coda, in blood red, pulsates gently from the veins in her wrist immediately beneath it. Bao's eyes lock on the coda. Immediately her heart rate slows, her pupils dilate, and any reservations about this next kill are exhaled like so much emotional smoke.
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Death Opera
Ficção CientíficaCooperating space stations, thousands of years post-earth, have come to use music as a drug - where the performers have become street dealers, and the troupe owners are the kingpins. A new source arises, and is stolen at a moment of weakness. The en...
