Assassin

Chapter Three

    The small monitor on the bedside cabinet flashed, momentarily lighting up the darkened room, revealing the fully clothed man lying on the bed.  He opened his eyes, turning his attention to the monitor, his meditation over, his senses scanning the area around him.  The monitor told him it was mid evening, the ships systems were all running normally, and a call was coming in from headquarters on his home planet, Kagara.  He sat up, wondering why the call was coming through to him, and not to the ships captain Kedra.

     Sitting up, Taiven stretched, his muscles rippling under the skin.  He pressed a button on the side of the monitor, then spoke.  “Taiven,” he said simply.

     “You are headed for Earth,” a voice from headquarters informed him, “your assignment has been changed.  You are no longer required on Marenta, a bigger threat has been detected, heading for Earth.  Your captain has been informed, your course is being adjusted as we speak.  Your new assignment details are being sent through, they should be with you in a matter of seconds, good luck.”

     Taiven pressed the button on the side of his monitor once more, then stood up, crossing the room to the computer below his cabin window.  As he reached it, his six foot six frame looming over it, the computer sprang to life.  Files appeared on the screen, files that Taivens brain absorbed as quickly as they appeared, within seconds he had all the information he needed.  His target was Maclief Theirra, a notorious Thiassun, wanted for murder, terrorism, and a host of other crimes on more planets than Taiven had fingers.  Maclief had killed several of Taivens hunter colleagues, some of whom had been trained alongside Taiven, as well as one of his trainers.  The Thiassun had escaped two high security prisons on Taivens homeland, killing several guards there, as he and his liberators had headed for freedom.

     Prison wasn’t an option for Maclief anymore, Taivens orders confirmed that, Maclief was now considered too high a threat, he was to be terminated.

     Taiven deleted the file he had been sent, it was standard practice for a hunter, ‘delete anything that links you to us or to your prey.’  Hunter protocol had been instilled in him from the age of fourteen, before that it had been soldier protocol, before that. . .  well. . . he couldn’t remember anything before that.  He had been three years old when he had been placed in the governments military training school, late for a trainee, but twenty two years later he was the best hunter they had.  He had the ‘shards’ down his spine to prove it, not that it bothered him, after twenty two years in the military emotions were non existent.  Taiven couldn’t remember a time when he had felt anything, he supposed he must have felt pain at some points in his early training, but a combination of desensitization and mental cleansing had wiped those memories away a long time ago.

     Tapping lightly on the computers keyboard, Taiven called up the ships computer.  He had around half an hour before they reached Earths orbit, he walked away from the computer, towards his weapons cabinet, switching off the computer with his mind as he moved.

     “Lights,” he said, as he reached the cabinet.  The room was instantly bathed in light, Taiven didn’t flinch or react in any way, his black eyes adjusted automatically.

     Opening the cabinet he looked inside, it took him a matter of seconds to decide what he would need, he had terminated enough Thiassuns to  know how difficult it was and what wouldn’t kill them.  Taking out several deadly looking blades, a couple of guns, a short sword, barbed whip, and what looked like two circular saw blades, Taiven tossed them one by one onto the bed.  Then he headed for the wardrobe next to the weapons cabinet, taking off the black shirt he wore as he did so.  

     Shining silvery in the light, each one set exactly a centimetre from the next in a perfectly straight line down his spine, were his shards.  Each one was a four pointed star, its pointed edges ridged to resemble jagged teeth or mountains.  There were nine of them, each one represented stages of his career, denoting his rank and ability.  The first had been awarded for passing his training, the second for completing one hundred assignments, the third for carrying out fifty terminations.  The fourth shard had been for capturing ten of his homelands most wanted criminals, the fifth for completing his five hundredth mission, the sixth for reaching the hunters rank of ‘TA,’ or ‘trusted assassin.’  For the seventh shard Taiven had saved the life of the man who would later become his homeworlds President, when the criminal he was about to apprehend had taken the politician hostage.  In saving the politician, and apprehending his mark as a bonus, Taivens actions had been declared above and beyond the call of duty.  He had received the eighth shard when he had reached the rank of ‘TAI’, or ‘trusted assassin of influence.’  The ninth star, which no one else had ever received, had been for ten years of hunter service, after which he had earned the title ‘Taie, trusted assassin of influence and excellence.’  It was meant to be a great honour, but to Taiven it meant only two things, firstly that he had been lucky, and secondly that he had outlived any other hunter.  Hunters never left the military, not alive.