Vahri’s gaze dropped to the sleek slate, the digital mark an obsidian scar across the legal documentation. Zannet’s terms were clear, devoid of frills. Calculated. She moved with purpose, leaving the stunned corporate counsel to reassemble his composure and his shattered desk. The reinforced doors of Zannet’s private shuttle hissed open to a minimalist capsule upholstered in smooth, cool synth-leather. No visible cameras, no obvious microphones, but Vahri’s internal scanner hummed with ambient energy signatures. Too clean. Too silent. “The penthouse suite is prepped,” Zannet’s voice, now thick with the lingering haze of deep sleep, cut through the capsule’s quiet hum. He leaned back, head against the polished chrome, eyes still unfocused. “Standard corporate security protocols. Nothing you haven’t seen.” Vahri stayed silent, running a gloved hand over the wall to test the alloy and calculate blast radius. Standard protocols were a suggestion for rookies. She’d seen enough ‘impenetrable’ perimeters breached by a well-placed thermite charge and a decent distraction. The shuttle docked with a barely perceptible shudder, spilling them into a vast, silent space that dwarfed Zannet’s boardroom. Floor-to-ceiling transpar-steel framed a dizzying panorama of Ghatz, the hyper-city rising in jagged tiers of chromium and hard neon. A monstrous bed, large enough to land a light transport on, dominated the center, flanked by minimalist consoles and sleek, unadorned furniture. Too much open space. Too many blind spots. Vahri began her sweep immediately. She ignored the obvious places—under the bed, inside the comm unit. Instead, she started with the air vents, meticulously unscrewing each grate, her fingers probing the cool metal for tripwires, pressure plates, or tell-tale heat signatures of hidden listening devices. Her movements were fluid and methodical, honed by years of breaching high-value targets. The silence of the suite was broken only by the soft click of metal and the rustle of her fatigues. Zannet watched, perched on the edge of a sleek, low-slung sofa, his posture a mixture of exhaustion and bewildered fascination. He had left his bespoke, bulletproof suit jacket on. His eyes, usually sharp and predatory, were half-lidded, still fighting the pull of an unfamiliar, profound fatigue. Vahri moved to the massive walk-in closet, a space larger than her previous safehouse. She systematically patted down every designer suit, every silk dressing gown, feeling for hidden compartments, weapon caches, anything that could be weaponized or surveilled. One of the high-end jackets had a suspicious weight to its lining. She ripped it open, exposing not a device, but an elaborately stitched pocket containing several rare, uncut luminescence gems. “My contingency cache,” Zannet mumbled, observing her casual destruction of bespoke tailoring. “By all means, continue.” Vahri ignored him, her attention caught by the reinforced paneling behind a holographic display. Too thick. She pulled out a miniature sonic scanner from her utility belt, running it along the seam. The device chirped, indicating a cavity. With a sharp thrust, she plunged her combat knife into the seam, twisting. The panel popped open with a soft sigh of displaced air. Inside, neatly stacked, were three fully loaded pulse rifles and a discreetly labelled medkit. “Weapons cache,” she stated, pulling out a rifle, checking its firing pin. “Efficient. But positioned for defensive engagement from inside the room. Not for external threat neutralization.” She looked at Zannet, a question in her eyes that wasn’t a question. It was an assessment of his combat readiness. She moved to the bath suite, a cavernous chamber of polished obsidian and frosted glass. Her gaze fell on a sleek, metallic fixture. Her hand went to the collar of her tactical tunic, unzipping the front seam. The heavy material parted, exposing the pale, scarred skin of her shoulder and upper chest. A constellation of white lines, some thin as threads, others thick and ropy, crisscrossed her skin—the brutal legacy of shrapnel, blades, and energy blasts from a hundred forgotten skirmishes. Her hand, calloused and firm, reached for a patch of skin just below her clavicle, where a nearly invisible scar snaked its way down towards her sternum. She pressed hard, then peeled back a tiny, translucent patch, exposing a sub-dermal comm-link no larger than a grain of rice. Her personal link. She secured it, then moved to the fixture, checking for micro-transmitters, completely oblivious to Zannet’s frozen stillness on the sofa, his eyes fixed on the raw geography of her exposed body. He cleared his throat, the sound rough. “I… I appreciate the thoroughness.” He gestured vaguely at the massive bed. “But perhaps we can establish some… domestic protocols before you dismantle the suite.” He stifled a yawn. “For instance. No knives in the bed. No explosives on the nightstand. And perhaps, a modicum of… quiet. I am attempting to achieve another sleep cycle.” Vahri considered this, her expression unreadable. “Acknowledged. Operational parameters for cohabitation. Understood.” She returned to the main suite, the comm-link secured, her tunic zipped back to her throat. She approached the bed, her movements precise. She remained in her field rig. She kept her boots laced tight. Her grip stayed clamped around the combat knife against her chest, the blade pointing towards the ceiling. She lay down on the monstrous bed, stiff and unyielding, beside Zannet. Her body was rigid, every muscle tensed, ready to spring. She stared at the ceiling, unblinking. The bed, accustomed to the isolated sprawl of a single executive, now held two figures, one a study in enforced stillness, the other a coiled spring. Zannet shifted, his brow furrowed, but the unfamiliar proximity, the sheer, unwavering stillness of Vahri beside him, worked its strange magic. His eyelids fluttered, then finally, mercifully, closed. His breathing deepened, evened out. He was asleep. A split second later, the world outside exploded. The transpar-steel window, rated to withstand a direct missile hit, spiderwebbed into a thousand glittering cracks as a high-velocity projectile slammed into it. The sonic boom rattled the spire frame. Vahri was a blur. Before Zannet’s body could even register the shockwave, she had him, tackling him flat across the polished floor, her body shielding his, the roar of shattered glass fading into a distant echo. She had identified the sniper’s trajectory, the caliber, the probable firing position, all before the shards had finished raining down. Her head snapped up, eyes scanning the cityscape, already calculating the most direct route to the offending high-rise. “Sniper. Long range. High-grade armor-piercing round. Amateur, given the attempt on transpar-steel, but persistent.” She rolled off Zannet, already moving towards the emergency armory she’d discovered. “Is neutralizing rival syndicates considered a wifely duty, or an exclusive partnership obligation?” She pulled out a pulse rifle, its sleek barrel glinting in the crimson warning lights that had flickered on. “Consider it my first domestic chore.” Before she could even rack a round, the reinforced door to the penthouse suite blew inward with a concussive blast, showering the room with pulverized shrapnel. Mezzo, soot-stained and wild-eyed, tumbled into the room, a smoking, sparking data-slate clutched in his hand. “Vahri! Zannet! We’ve got a problem! A *big* problem! Pava’s genetic tracker just pinged the mainframe of Kiron’s goddamn Vulkana spire!”

Tripwires and Trousseaus