Enzo sighed, pulling at the collar on the shirt he was wearing over his exosuit in an attempt to get some kind of air flow. The air was thick with moisture, and every breath felt like he was sucking it in through a wet cloth. A drip of sweat trailed down his throat and into his shirt, soaking into the thin black cotton with the rest. He pressed a finger to his earpiece, listening for the tell-tale beep of a successful connection.

“Terrance! I’m fucking burning alive out here, man,” he whispered, bristling at the low chuckle he heard on the other end of the line.

“That’s what being the admiral’s pet gets ya, huh?”

Enzo huffed, swiping at the sweat trying to drip into his eye, pushing himself further back against the brick wall he was propped against in a vain attempt to get more shade. “You’re a dick. How far away is the target?”

Terrance clicked his tongue, and Enzo could hear the quiet beeping of the tracker doing its work on the other end. “About two city blocks away from you, though they’re moving pretty slowly. Hold on, let me tap into the city cams and send an image your way. Got your specs on?”

“Yup,” Enzo said, lips popping on the p. “Ready when you are.”

He winced as the display flickered on one side of the specs, disoriented as always as the left side remained blank so he was seeing the bustling street and the right showed him an overhead view of the city. His first instinct was always to close one eye or the other, and he strained to keep both open as the display on the right side zoomed down through the buildings, whizzing past windows on skyscrapers and doors on hovercrafts until it settled on the scene they were looking for.

“Hell, she’s a feisty one, huh?” Terrance quipped into his ear.

The comm crackled and Varick’s gruff voice filtered through to them. “Great, just what we need. Can’t we get a docile target just once?”

“Quit your bitching. At least it isn’t another damn slave operation. I swear to fuck if I have to see another slave cruiser this cycle I’m gonna kill something,” Hax’s voice filtered through to join the others.

The comm crackled again as the fourth and final man on the ground crew – Farris – clicked in. “Well, considering the fact that killing is basically our life, I’m not really surprised.”

“Shut up, asshole, you know what I meant!”

Enzo was busy watching his display, taking in the five suited men trying to hold the girl still between them. She was doing her damnedest to get away, kicking and scratching, pulling her legs up off the pavement to flail around when they tried to hold her still.

 If the girl were Terran Enzo would have said she was maybe eight or nine, slim and pretty with pale pink skin and lilac purple hair. He knew from his report, though, that she was actually sixteen. Her name was Vix, and she was the daughter of a powerful noble from the planet Yarris. These guys had kidnapped her and were bringing her to this shithole of a tropical planet to their boss, a long-time rival of Vix’s father. Enzo’s team had been hired to basically get in, kill literally everyone, and get back out with Vix in tow.

None of the passersby were paying the struggling group any mind, and it made Enzo grit his teeth. He knew that Britax was a rough planet, but was it really that commonplace to see a goddamn kidnapping that not a single head turned as five hulking men carried off a shrieking little girl?

“Man, what is up with these locals? Seriously, not even one person has looked their way,” Terrance piped in, putting voice to Enzo’s thoughts.

“Dorian controls basically this whole district, didn’t you know? Eighty percent of these people work with him, and those who don’t aren’t stupid enough to cross him,” Farris offered, and Enzo glanced out of the corner of his eye to where he knew the man was hiding out on a fire escape a few buildings over. He caught a glimpse of vibrant orange skin before Farris pulled himself back into the shadows again.

Enzo smirked, glancing back down at his display and watching Vix land a solid kick right between one of the men’s legs. “So what you’re really saying is that we’re basically entirely surrounded by not-so-friendlies? Cool. Good odds.”

Varick’s derisive snort crackled across the comm. “You’re such a freak, Hagen. Those are not good odds. Those are probably the worst odds we’ve seen in months, actually.”

Enzo turned his cheeky grin to where Varick was settled across the street from him. “Aw, come on, Vare! Where’s your sense of adventure? Disappearing along with your hair?”

He chuckled as the other man quickly flipped him the bird before settling back into his hopefully inconspicuous position against the wall.

“Quit dicking around, Zo,” Terrance intoned over the comm. “It’s only been like four months since you fucked up on that slave mission. You can’t afford to do it again so soon.”

Enzo rolled his eyes. He knew Terrance was just being intentionally a dick, but if he had to keep hearing about that for too much longer he was going to scream. That mission was exactly why he had been assigned to one of the other captains, why he had been taking the easier missions with Terrance’s team instead of the more difficult ones Kade’s crew tended to get. “That’s wearing thin real fucking fast, jackass. Besides, Varick is the one who broke position, not me. Mother hen his ass for a second, will ya?”

Farris broke in then, interrupting their banter with a loud click of his tongue that had Enzo snapping immediately to attention. “Look sharp, guys. They’re almost here.”

Sure enough, when Enzo returned his attention to the display on his specs he saw that the group of men with the girl – no longer struggling, though Enzo still admired how long she had held out for – were walking down the street they were stationed on. Their pace had become much more rapid since the girl had stopped hindering their progress with her thrashing and screaming. He took a deep breath, calm settling over him as it always did just before a fight, and took out the dagger he had strapped to his calf.

He heard Terrance clicking away at whatever display he was looking at back on their ship, the steady beeping of pressed buttons almost a calming sound to him after so many months of taking missions with the Horvarian. “You know the plan, Zo. Take as many of them out as you can before the rest of the squad comes in. If you feel your power going out before it’s done, give the signal and the guys’ll come back you up.”

“Got it, Cap,” Enzo replied, pulling off his specs and storing them in the satchel at his waist, already in his zone. As the group rounded the corner he clicked the button at his throat, releasing his helmet. The display flickered to life, filling his vision with familiar red data and he grinned, always thrilled at impending action.

“I’m moving in,” he warned, pulling at that power inside of him until he felt the familiar feeling like cool mist washing over him. The cloaking came easier to him with every passing week, and he grinned as within seconds he was fully submerged in the shadows.

He wasted no more time, darting out onto the sidewalk to intercept the briskly moving group of men. When his first hit landed, a clean stab right through the thigh of the person leading the pack, the reaction was instant. The man fell to the ground with a pained howl, clutching at the leg, pants rapidly soaking with blood. Their orders had not been to maim, however, and so Enzo’s next shot landed clean in the man’s jugular, blood spraying the face of the other man who had knelt down to check on his companion. Enzo smirked before whirling around and slashing the would-be-helper’s throat, paying special attention to the set of his own limbs so as to avoid running into the other panicked guys in the group.

All three of them had their blasters raised, spinning around and searching fruitlessly for whatever they thought had slaughtered their companions right from under their noses. Enzo could see the sheer fright on their faces, the same look in each man’s eyes that told him they were going to be easy targets. A frightened man was not usually a level-headed one. Enzo darted between them so he was behind the man standing in front, slashing at the back of his knee and watching him tumble to the ground with a shout.

He would have felt worse about picking these guys off like this, but he’d seen already the state the poor girl they’d kidnapped was in – bruises, scrapes, bags under her eyes from lack of sleep, cheeks hollow with lack of hydration and sustenance – and so took no mercy as he pulled the kneeling man’s head back by his hair and stabbed him through the heart. He pulled his dagger free with a squelch, turning to the next guy in his line, dodging a kick (which had been pretty damn well aimed for someone who couldn’t even see him), and grabbing hold of the extended leg to swing him to the ground.

“Fuck this shit,” he heard as his knife left his victim’s chest, and when he whirled around he saw that the last guy had dropped Vix and was careening off down the street.

Too slow, he thought, and reeled his arm back before letting the dagger fly, satisfied when it buried itself in the retreating man’s back and sent him sprawling to the ground.