Leashing Darkness

Halo glared at the blinking monitor that resided before her. Glowing in big green letter were the impersonal words.

Name: Halo

Age: 29

Height: 6 foot

Assignment: Asses unknown planet in quadrant nine.

Rank: Highly classified

“I just got back from a fucking assignment.” Halo growled rubbing her face. A lot of the employs in ISAPE would be thrilled to have an assignment in such a far out quadrant on an unknown planet but Halo was worn out, tired, and downright fucking grumpy.

Halo jumped to her feat and grabber her black leather duster, followed by her favorite daggers. The blades were six inches of blue steel, the metal folded and refolded until they were nearly unbreakable; hooks ran the length of the blade when inserted into a man it did more damage coming out then going back in. The handles were a metal rod rapped in layers of black leather. Halo shoved the knives threw the sheaths that criss-crossed her chest. Next came her babies. She had bought them off the black market, two S grade cyber guns. Cyber guns shot beams of radioactive light into their targets and caused all the blood cells in the human body to self combust. Completely untraceable and modified by her own two hands. They looked exactly like every other cyber gun but were more powerful with more gadgets.

Halo slammed them into their holsters on her waist and was out the door before the screen on her computer turned black.

Derrick bent close to the paper in front of him. The budget was going haywire. Bundles of cash were disappearing right and left up and down. Derrick grabbed his uncut hair and gave it a vicious tug. “Dam, dam, dam”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Derrick gasped and pushed back from his desk. His chair teetered dangerously before going into the rigors of gravity. Derrick gasped again as he bounced across the floor.

“Halo,” Dance growled. “What are you doing?” Most people, most men would be burning with rage if a women was able to scare them enough that they quite literally fell out of their seats, but Halo was no ordinary women. There was nothing angelic about her.

She was 6 feet of fucking danger. Her hair was deep red only a few shades off from blood red and the color was completely natural. It was cut in such a way that it looked like she had gotten out of bed and hadn’t bothered with a brush. It was short just barely brushing her shoulders. Her skin was the palest he had ever seen, it went beyond pale and into ghostly. Every inch of her body rippled with toned muscle.

Most men would have one of two reactions when looking at her. The first and most common, was fear. Something about her just made people shudder with fear. The second emotion, nothing. There were times when it seemed as if she was invisible and the moment you took your eyes off of her you forgot all about her. At least those were the two emotions you experienced if you didn’t look into her eyes. Her eyes were an amazing yellow gold, that glittered like stars in the light but they had unfortunate side effect of mesmerizing anyone who looked into them.

“Its procedure to give an agent at least one week before handing out another assignment, I’ve been back for five god damn hours.”

Derrick gingerly picked himself up from the floor keeping his eyes trained on her chin and away from her eyes. “You’re the only one available, Halo.” Halo growled and slammed her hand on the desk.

“Don’t give me that bullshit, Derrick. I checked the record as soon as I got back. You have Reggie and Natasha and both of them have had their full resting period.”

Derrick flinched. “Well that’s why I need you to go.” Dance quickly amended. “Nothing gets by you.” Halo’s growl told him she wasn’t satisfied. Dance sighed and righted his chair. “All right Halo, the truth is you’re the only one with a fair chance of completing this mission. Our explorers found an unmarked planet about a week ago, three days into their observation a beam of unidentified composition captured their ship and pulled it onto the planet. We have not heard from them since.” Halo leaned back her face going blank. “It’s true,” Derrick pressed sensing her weakness. “Any of our agents could evaluate whether the race on the planet is a threat of not but you’re the only one who has a chance of recovering my explorer team.”

Halo sighed and rubbed her face. “I’m tired Derrick.” Shock caused Derrick to meet her eyes. Halo did not admit to weakness of any kind. “I’ve been on twelve missions this month, I’ve blown all the companies records away in every category, I’ve done the most mission in the shortest period and I do them in half the time as the other agents, I need a break.”

Derrick reached out to lay her hand atop of hers but she jerked it back before he could. Derrick retracted his hand, wounded. “Halo, you need a life.

Halo gritted her teeth. “Get back on subject Derrick.”

“All right, one more mission Halo, then you can take a vacation.” Halo narrowed her eyes.

“I want it completely paid for.” Derrick opened his mouth to object but the angry slash of her mouth told him not to push it. “We can handle that,” he grudgingly conceded.

Halo nodded. “I’ll leave in three days.”

“No!” Derrick growled. Halo pinned him with a murderous glare.

“If the race is murderous, then the crew well be dead. I need to prepare.” With that said Halo turned and left the office leaving Derrick no other option but to follow her orders.

Halo watched the navigation expert punch in the coordinates then calmly and smoothly reached down and changed one of the mathematical equations. “You forgot to round to the nearest one millionth.” Halo told the man when he looked up at her in wonder.

It was a stipulation that agents couldn’t know how to fly ships; the agency had some kind of fear that an agent would go rouge and turn into some kind of pirate. When Halo was confronted for having the knowledge she simply stated. “I’ve spent months on board ships, on the missions you’ve gave me. How could you not expect me to pick a few things up?” As they could not argue with her reasoning and because she was their best agent they let it slide.

“Look at that.” One of the navigators said in awed wonder. Halo glanced out the window with cold dispassion.

“A star going nova. A beautiful sight… for the inexperienced.”

The two men driving the ship froze; the younger one went red in the face. Halo settled her hand lightly on the young man’s shoulder. “If you get me to the planet alive I don’t care how much experience you have just steer clear of that star it could be trouble. I’ll expect a favor for this.”

Halo didn’t wait for consent before taking her seat behind the two men. “We have reason to believe they well be able to detect us. In that case we can’t linger. I need this ship to land as quickly as possible then while their concentrated on finding us by land you get back into the air. You will need to travel at least a day out, do you understand?”

“Yes, agent.” Then senor navigator responded.

Halo leaned forward across the console as they neared the planet. “Excuse me agent? You’re squishing us.”

“Can you still breathe?” Halo asked without taking her eyes of f the growing planet.”

“Ya, but.”

“Then deal with it.”

The planet looked basically like earth. Bright greens and subtle blues, the only difference, all the green was on the left side of the planet and all the blue was on the right side of the planet.

“The land and water are separated.” The navigators breathed.

“No shit Sherlock.” Halo whispered.

“Who’s Sherlock?” Halo’s mouth tightened but she didn’t respond. Didn’t anyone watch thousand year old movies or read classic literature?

Halo snapped out of her awe induced stupor. “Get us onto that planet and fast.” She snapped at the senior navigator. “And you, start scanning for clusters of buildings or life forms; we don’t want to land in a city.”

“Yes, agent.” They barked simultaneously.