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the person staring back at her had changed since the last time.
    Outwardly, there wasn’t much. An Inru blade had grazed Lea’s neck some months ago, leaving a thin scar that trailed along her jawline, but everything else was the same. With her hair pulled back into a ponytail and her eyes narrowed to a scowl, the scar hardened her features—which was why she had decided against having it removed. It was also a reminder of some deeper wounds, not the least of which was the memory of what she had done to the Inru bitch who cut her. That day had marked the beginning of the spiral—and Lea’s first realization of how far down she would have to go.
    That’s how they get you, a trusted voice had once warned her. You just wake up one morning, and you’re one of them. After that, you can’t go back.
    Worse still, Lea now understood that she didn’t even have the will to try. The mission was the only thing that stirred her passions. The job was her only purpose.
    And the kill, she added. What are you when that’s your only kick?
    A spot of turbulence jolted her out of that thought, making her grab the nearest handhold. It seemed like she had already spent a lifetime in the air—most of it aboard heavy transports like this, sealed within cramped quarters rife with the taste of adrenaline. After more than fifty combat drops, she had developed a serious taste for it.
    “CIC,” Lea heard the pilot say over her earpiece. “We’re crossing the Old Federation border now. Estimate thirty minutes to target.”
    “Acknowledged,” she replied. “Keep it dark up there, guys. You know the drill when we’re operating outside of jurisdiction.”
    “When are we ever in jurisdiction?”
    Lea smiled. Even though Russia was technically part of the Incorporated Territories, there were still a lot of military freelancers in the former republics who made sport out of shooting down stray aircraft. “Just do the flying and let me worry about the travel arrangements,” she said gamely. “Next time, maybe the bad guys will hole up someplace nicer.”
    “Roger on that, Skipper.”
    Lea closed off the channel, turning around to face the Critical Information Center. Once an empty cargo hold, the space was now crammed with rows of interface consoles, tracking nodes, and communications equipment: everything required to coordinate a complex mobile insertion. Manning the stations was a small crew of men and women wearing the black and gold uniform of Technical Branch. Independent of Corporate Special Services, T-Branch was an elite unit with a military chain of command—a hedge against the split loyalties and infighting that plagued the civilian security agencies. That autonomy had also spared her from having to deal with the layers of bureaucracy at CSS—not to mention an entrenched administration that still viewed her as an enemy.
    For that reason, among others, Lea eschewed the uniform, even though she held a commissioned rank of major as a condition of her job. She had always been wary of working with the big guns, based on her own experience with the kind of mercenaries CSS employed. In time, though, Lea had come to think of the team as an extension of herself—which included her cunning, her instincts, and sometimes even her rage. It was their work, more than anything, that had assured her reputation as a corporate spook.
    You mean your reputation as an Inru nightmare.
    The glint off her quicksilver blade reinforced that thought. The weapon had saved her life once—and since then, she never entered battle without it. She stowed the knife in the leg compartment of her body armor, then strode toward the rising fracas at the back of the CIC. Five members of her advance team were engaged in a game of breakneck poker, their voices rising and falling with the cards that flew around a pile of money on the deck. Epithets seared the air, volleying back and forth with the turn of each card, while the players fell one by one. Not even their own