Mantis Book 1

Available from Amazon.com.

Mary Christmas Jones is a genetically and cybernetically enhanced human — trained by her father to be an assassin. He is among the first to die at her hands — he should have realized the folly of pissing her off.

She planned on operating solo, devoting her life to hunting and eliminating people as evil as her father had been. For that she needed a ship. The sweet little number she had stopped working when she didn’t have a mission code to enter. It had never been her plan to take and command a pirate ship.

Many want to stop her. First they have to catch her.

Mantis Rising – Chapter 1, Mary Christmas Jones

This is what my life has become. I’m all of nineteen years old and I hang out in bars, drinking alcoholic concoctions that don’t affect me in any way whatsoever. I don’t gain weight. I don’t break out in pimples. I don’t get a buzz on. At least, I enjoy the taste — usually. Some of this shit is vile. Depending on the circumstances, I might drink it anyway.

I’m as sexy as hell — at least to other humans — and I know it. I use makeup to alter, not to enhance, my appearance. That’s not vanity. I was built this way. Now, yes, I do understand that sexy is in the eye of the beholder. I also realize that, to a large extent, sexy is cultural. Some worlds favor fat women, while other worlds go for women who are thin to the point of gauntness. Breast size seems to be largely a matter of personal preference regardless of culture.

As I already said, in most of Human-occupied space, I am considered to be as sexy as hell. Don’t just take my word for it. Other bar patrons — and not just the human ones — hit on me. It happens every time. Put a dozen unattached women in a bar and who do you think the men, women, and aliens flock to first? I tend to put up with it. I can’t really get away with eviscerating them just because they’re annoying me. Not in a public place, anyway. Maybe outside in an alley. Still, not all of the bars I wind up in are adjacent to conveniently dark alleys.

It’s not always the men, either. I’ll admit to a preference for female companionship — at least long-term — but for a one-nighter, I can tolerate, and yes, frequently enjoy, a male presence. Of course, some of the people I run into are so alien that they’re neither male nor female and sometimes they’re both. That can be interesting, especially if you’re not squeamish. Trust me, squeamish is not a word that will ever be used to describe me — unless, maybe, I’m undercover at the time and playing a role.

The guy trying to buy me a drink tonight was proving to be persistent to an annoying degree. Annoying and not particularly bright. Sadly, the buildings in this section of the city butt together wall to wall, with no convenient alley in the vicinity. Sometimes, life’s a bitch.

We had already exchanged a modicum of personal information. I knew his name was Satch. I told him that mine is Kitty because, most of the time, it’s foolish to give out my real name. Satch is a troubleshooter for public transportation. I think that means he’s a mechanic who works on engines. I’m trained to kill people. That means I kill people. I told him that. Still, he sat on the stool next to me and lisped as he licked his lips. “How many, sweetie?”

My admission should have put him off, not increased his libido. How many had I killed? I’ve never counted. My feeling is that they’re dead. I doubt they’re concerned about how many others I’ve sent to the same dark location, so why should I be? There had been the five men intending to rape me, of course, when I was sixteen. Then the others — at least the ones I had recognized — who had previously used me in that fashion in my father’s compound. That brought the count up to thirteen. My father had seemed oddly pleased with me, on that occasion, rather than angry. True, I was being trained as an assassin — maybe I just blossomed early?

After my killing spree, I had been subjected for over a year to other enhancements and training, rather than rape. Yeah, that pain had been far worse than the rape. My next victims had been Celeste and her two guards. Sixteen and counting. I would never know how many people died in the nuclear blast I had been responsible for. I said, “I don’t keep count. Maybe as many as a hundred or two.”

He grinned. “Listen, baby, you’re really hot.”

Not a very imaginative pickup line. I imagine the lisp was just his accent, rather than a speech defect. Most of the people in the bar spoke with a lisp. Without looking at him, I said, “Am I?” I didn’t really intend it as a question.

“Damn right, you are, woman. I’d love to buy you another of whatever it is that you’re drinking.” Then his face lit up as though inspiration had just struck him. Have I mentioned my unbelievable peripheral vision? “Or, what say we find a private room with a bed and have some quality fun?”

Yes, this is what my life has become. I suppose I’m lucky to have a life at all. My voice no-nonsense, I asked, “Meaning?” He wasn’t picking up on the warning signs. Plus, I had already told him what I do for a living. Maybe he thought I had been kidding?

“You’re kidding right? You said you were trained as an assassin. I know that must include ways to please a man.” He grinned like an idiot. “Probably ones I’ve never heard of. So you can get him alone. I would love to be alone with you, baby.”

I grinned at him. “Oh, it did. You’re right about that. However, and don’t take this the wrong way, I’d get more of a thrill from killing you than from fucking you.” I’ve never gotten a thrill from killing.

Since he couldn’t see any right way to take that, he left. Good riddance.

***

My name is Mary Christmas Jones. I’m told my middle name derives from an ancient religion brought along with some of the colonists from Old Earth. Other than that, it’s just a name. I have many last names — none are the one I was born with. I disowned that name, and my father, the day he made me kill Celeste, the poor girl I had loved more than life itself.

I left his employ that same night, leaving behind a small nuclear device as a parting gift. I guess it would be appropriate to mention that it had been armed. I doubt he had enough time to really enjoy it or to appreciate its simple elegance. Honestly, blowing him up had been expedient for any number of reasons but, to my way of thinking, had been letting him off far too easily.

My father wasn’t pure evil. Yes, he was greedy — for wealth and status and the power both of those brought with them. And he was definitely cruel. I would go so far as to say he was an evil man. But pure evil is a level he hadn’t yet attained. I know. I’ve seen pure evil more than once in my life.

Celeste had left me a parting gift, as well. His account numbers. Could I have gotten them without her? No, I lacked her amazing skills. I was just educated enough to be able to use them without getting caught.

There are plenty of other greedy, cruel, evil beings in Human-occupied space. Yes, space is large enough that no single person, not even a cybernetic assassin, can realistically expect to make even a dent in the problem, but I needed a hobby. What better way to spend my time than by offing bad guys? After all, I am a cybernetically-enhanced assassin. I was designed — I was bred — to be a killing machine.

No more nukes, though. I am far more surgical now. I’m sure I took out any number of people — men, women, and children — with that nuke, most of whom were people who didn’t really deserve to be vaporized. Sometimes I feel bad about that. They may have been guilty by association, but that doesn’t really cut it for me.

Tonight, I was wasting time looking for two things. I would be happy finding either of them. One was a ship to get me off of this planet because my prospects of finding the second one were limited here on Narlarkic. What I really wanted was a computer scientist or an engineer with Celeste’s level of hacking skills. I have my own sweet little ship hidden in a cave on this world. I don’t dare use it until someone disables the programming my father had installed. I didn’t know whether my ship would actually blow up or just leave me stranded out in space somewhere. Neither was a pleasant option to contemplate. Both would result in my death. One way was just significantly faster than the other.

Barring getting my own ship — which I named the Celeste, by the way — working again, I had decided I would be happy enough taking a position on one of the many freighters that came to Narlarkic to pick up or drop off cargo. I had my feelers out. I would still need to find that engineer someday, but there was really no rush. I had people to assassinate. I’d get to it when I could.

I am MC Jones and this is my story.

Mantis is available from Amazon.com.