5. Under the Skin

Trying to decipher the pattern behind Kestrel’s chosen targets mystified Niko. What he’d at first presumed to be either political or ego-based murders were now instead appearing to follow invented conspiracies. Niko combed through endless files on Matteo Ricci, the CEO of StarSeam. The man had a fairly clean history other than some shady dealings with tax fraud seven years ago. He was well known for regularly donating generous portions of his income to charity. Whatever reason Kestrel had cooked up in that labyrinthine, dangerous mind of his to judge another philanthropist deserving of death left Niko puzzled. But madness rarely worked in ways that could be clearly labeled or understood.

Kestrel’s words ran through his mind again and again.

They know what they’ve done.

He shook his head. Elliott Kestrel had a broken view of reality—if Mary and Johann were to be believed. Despite everything, Niko felt a pang of sympathy. The man needed real help, not the gratuitous public execution that would be inevitably waiting for him when he was finally brought in—if he wasn’t killed on the scene by hunters or authorities first.

If Kestrel hadn’t gone so far, they could have tried to get him the help he’d needed. But he had crossed a line that he could never return from, and had kept running. An entire galaxy had its eyes on him now, and it was frightened, angry, and vengeful.

And in the end, though Niko was sympathetic—he and his father, after all, suffered from severe depression themselves—mental illness wasn’t a pass for hurting and killing others. It would never justify his actions.

Niko researched endlessly as the days passed, each hour seeping into the next, illuminated in a haze of hologram headache blue. T1-N4 hovered around him all the while, pressing urgent reminders to eat, drink, take breaks, take showers, or even take care of himself at all. It wasn’t until a good three days in that Niko realized his face had grown rough with a five o’ clock shadow. In the end, he was no closer to having any answers than when he’d started.

Zann sent along new content as well, interviews with others who’d known Kestrel in his life before he’d embarked on a galactic killing spree. One was a recorded interview with a slender and bony, middle-aged Heenva with widely branching antennae who had been Kestrel’s superior at LaraTech. He blandly gave a similar story of the man seeming like a fantastic worker at first but quickly unraveling to the point of his eventual hospitalization. They’d had no choice but to let him go, even fearing the safety of some of their other employees.

The man’s expression and tone were so dry and lifeless it pained Niko to even listen to him. He clearly didn’t want to be there and had little interest in being interviewed, giving Kulna only the most basic details unless pressed for more, until bluntly asking if he could leave now.

The second interview featured a human man who identified himself to Kulna as Kestrel’s ex, Liam Soren.

Oh. So, he’s gay, thought Niko. Or queer, at least.

Kulna asked Liam the basic questions about himself.He was currently twenty-six and had met Kestrel just before he’d graduated university. They’d both attended Graceleaf League Uni, with Liam a year behind. He had majored in Statistics. They had dated a year and a half before he’d had to give up on Kestrel.

Niko paused the video, leaning forward in his wheelchair to eye the finer details of the man. He wanted to study him, to see if by looking at the people who had once been part of Kestrel’s life, he could somehow understand something about the assassin that he’d missed, as though the still frame would whisper its secret to him.

Kestrel had managed to hold employment at a prestigious company, one of the biggest tech developers in the known galaxy. He’d attended and completed a master’s degree from the top STEM university out there—and in fewer years than was the standard. He’d had relationships too—Niko didn’t know the full extent of Kestrel’s tastes, but Liam was a human. He was handsome, with hollowed cheekbones, dark curls, and sun-kissed skin. He wasn’t as athletic or strong as Niko, though. And Niko knew he had a better jawline than Liam. The man’s style left a lot to be desired, too, basically screaming I’m a smarmy douchebag.

Niko was confident he would have stood a chance—

He cut the thought off, suddenly uncomfortable, self-conscious, and painfully aware of what he’d been doing, and resumed playing the video. Liam continued talking with Kulna, wasting no time in condemning his ex-boyfriend.

“Elliott was a piece of shit, yeah.”

The rest of the interview followed the same pattern as the others, with Liam offering up a testimony to Kestrel’s generally chaotic nature, inability to track reality, and penchant for violent outbursts.

In the following weeks, two more events on his list—a benefit full of actors and famous authors to raise awareness of a rare genetic disorder that the Heenva sometimes developed, and a speech given by Uru Taal, crown prince of the Toliai homeworld of Thoro—came due. Niko went to both, ready, armored and armed, only for each to go peacefully and without interruption. Kestrel was laying low—that, or whatever basis drove his hitlist hadn’t found those actors, authors, nor the prince worthy of death. An ever-growing flock of other bounty hunters circled the event grounds like ravenous sharks who’d caught a scent of blood in the water.

Eventually, he found himself sitting yet again in his living room, at the corner desk, staring at the same list. The sun of Kaapra-19 had recently set, giving way to bruise-blush dusk. Niko kept the window cracked, the scent of evening settling into his small apartment, the quieted sounds of nighttime cars and small ships humming past his window.

The next approaching event was another charity gala, on Uula, a planet that shared the same star as Yhanwe-ha. It was the only known solar system to have natively, independently developed two sets of sentient life, with the tentacled Gheroun hailing from a large, resource-rich moon called Haneen that orbited Uula. Uula was a gas giant that the Gheroun claimed as part of their empire, and the several dozen floating settlements there that kept to the atmosphere, suspended among pastel, buoyant clouds miles high had since made Uula a luxury spot among the galaxy.

The Gheroun leader, Imperator Khaathra, was expected to attend the gala to accept an award for her donations to various charities around the galaxy. In many ways, finding out Kestrel’s history had only complicated trying to parse his next target and motivations more than not. Niko had no way of being sure anymore at this point—every event was guesswork now at best—but decided it wouldn’t hurt to be there, just in case. He hated wasting his time milling around events where nothing happened, often supplied with several Galapol undercover agents by Zann. But it was better than the alternative: not attending and later learning another death had happened in his complacency.

Niko leaned back in his wheelchair, looking over at the portrait of his mother, with her ample smile forever frozen in time. Her dark eyes glittered affectionately, crow’s feet forming in the deep bronze skin around them. Her hair, glossy, black, and full with curls, was just beginning to show fine streaks of silver.

Mom, he thought. I don’t know what to do. How do I help people? How do I keep them safe?

He looked back to the files, his chest panging with grief, and tried to focus on the Starlight Burning concert. Kestrel had gone for a CEO in the crowd, ignoring the main attractions of the night. There was still a flare for drama there, in that he’d killed the man at a highly publicized event. He always killed at big events. He could have gone to Ricci’s home, could have taken him out quietly. But he didn’t; Kestrel cut his throat and shoved him over the balcony in front of over a million people. It felt, in fact, more and more to Niko like he was doing it to send a message.

Oh, I get a thrill, alright, he’d said.

Zann was probably right. This was some misguided persecution complex. One question remained, though: why? What connection between each person were they missing?

He ran countless searches online for connections any of these members could be supposedly involved in. What he found only grew more and more insufferable and ridiculous to read, and not a single one linked every individual who had been killed. What could the renowned screenwriter and director of Twenty-One Toliai, a cult classic action film, have to do with the deeply spiritual, elegant, and always composed Grand Sovereign of Yhanwe-ha? And what could either of them have to do with the CEO of an interstellar shipping company?

T1-N4 chimed, making Niko jump as he startled from his thoughts.

“You have one unread message from Zann. Would you like me to read it?” she said.

“Yeah.”

“The day’s coming up, you know.”

T1-N4 reading out Zann’s dry text in her digital, merry tone left Niko disconcerted. He craned his neck to peer out into the kitchen, where a ship-themed calendar hung on the fridge. This month’s image featured an ultra-fast XR-193 model racer that usually made Niko salivate a little whenever he looked at it. This time he ignored the image entirely, his gaze falling onto a single red X sloppily scratched onto the 14th. It marked the anniversary he never wanted to think about.

Niko’s heart dropped the moment he saw it. He sank further into his chair, every bit of Kaapra-19’s gravity felt profoundly.

“Message him back: yeah, I know. I’m going to visit. Send it.”

Zann replied almost instantly, which T1-N4 dutifully read, her bright tone relentlessly uncanny. “Good. He’ll need it. I can’t make it out that day. Lots going on here.”

It hurt, but Niko wasn’t surprised. He ignored the dull ache and instructed T1-N4 to respond. “I’ll keep him company. Don’t worry.”

He looked back at all the research hovering before him: the event list, documents from Zann and the ongoing investigation. An old professional photograph of Kestrel, looking like a blond, pedigree dog. All of it blended together like visual noise, pressing in on him. With a quick, angry wave, he gestured the holograms away, sitting now only in the dim light of his desk lamp.

He glanced again at the photo of his mother. He needed to see her like that, see her smiling. See her alive, and not left bleeding on the side of the street. He swallowed, gripping the edge of the desk, the sound of his pulse filling his ears as the suffocating memory of loss consumed him.

Two days later, Niko sat in his parked car outside his stepfather’s apartment complex. The complex was nice enough, with several stories and big windows, and was located in the same district of Kaapra-19 as Niko and Zann.

Oliver Delamar was the only father he’d ever known, and had loved and raised him as his own since Niko had been two years old. Niko’s biological father had abandoned him and his mother, and in thirty years of life, Niko had not once so much as found a text message or birthday card from him. Nor did he care. Oliver was the man he called Dad. He was the man who Niko cherished as family.

Oliver’s blinds were drawn tightly closed, and tended to stay that way. Niko could imagine him in that dim apartment, wallowing, wasting away with each day that ticked by. It hurt him to think about it. For the last three years, Niko hadn’t been too different from his father.

He exited the car and wheeled to Oliver’s unit, grateful for the elevator that took him to the third floor. In his lap sat a six pack of cold beer and a big bag of Ch’ua’s Chicken that smelled like salt and grease, its brown paper already freckled with translucent oil stains. He rang the doorbell and Oliver appeared a moment later, the man’s expression hollowed out, eyes empty and glossy.

He’s been crying.

“Hey, Dad,” Niko said. “I brought some food.”

The older man let him in. He really was an aged portrait of Zann, if Zann had had the life and soul ripped right out of him and left only the body behind. Over the past decade, Oliver had sunk into a state of simply existing, sleepwalking through life. He had better days occasionally, but this particular day was always the worst.

For all three survivors of the family.

Niko swept his gaze through the apartment as he entered, forever worried about the state of it and if his father was taking care of it, and of himself. It seemed clean enough, though, and only then did he realize that he’d been holding his breath, shoulders tense. Oliver lived in a little one bedroom, with a cushy but worn-out couch and even more family portraits and memories hanging than Niko had at his own place. Where Zann resembled their father with the same black skin and short cropped, coily hair, Niko had grown to be a lot like the man in personality: steeped in sentiment and grief he could never get past that pulled him down into the depths, forever clinging and heavy. The last three years had left Niko sinking into similar habits of aimlessness. Of soul-deep numbness.

Niko extracted the boxes of saucy chicken-heaped nachos onto Oliver’s coffee table by the couch, his father sinking down into a recliner. He handed Oliver a beer, then opened one for himself.

Both men ate in relative silence, only with small conversation. The ghost of what had transpired a decade ago today had stolen any enthusiasm for eating, leaving both containers eventually abandoned, half-full of cold chicken, congealing sauce, and soggy nachos.

In the background, an old action movie played its ending scene on the TV, which neither Niko nor Oliver could quite remember the name of but had seen countless times before.

“Is Zann coming out today?” Oliver asked, the quiet hope in his expression betraying his nonchalant tone.

“No, Dad. Sorry. With all the Kestrel shit, he hasn’t had any time off.” It was, of course, an excuse. But Niko couldn’t bear to stomp on the heart that was already broken.

“Oh, of course,” Oliver said politely, nodding.

The old action flick ended, the credits scrolling to a powerful soundtrack.

Then Twenty-One Toliai began playing, the famously beloved cold opening cutting right to a beaten and bloodied Xermotl pushing himself up to stand on jagged, wet stone, torrential rain and roiling, great waves filling the shot. Niko choked on his beer, coughing as he watched the title appear. Almost two dozen gargantuan, mean looking Toliai gangsters surrounded the Xermotl, looming in silence before they broke into dramatic fighting. It hit him then that the previous movie was Horu Duu’mari’s work too. This was an entire tribute marathon.

What had once been thrilling entertainment now felt all wrong, especially here in this place, on this day. The movie was just another memento mori of someone gone from this life.

“It’s been a decade now. I should go on and get over it,” Oliver said.

Niko winced. “Grief doesn’t really work like that, Dad. You shouldn’t expect yourself to ‘get over’ the people who were your world.”

“I know. I know that.” His father turned the can of beer over in his hand.

Niko struggled to find the words. “But you also deserve to live your life too. You deserve to go out and experience things and enjoy your time, still.”

If only he knew how to take his own advice.

Niko’s father looked back at the movie now. The cold opening was past, and now the film journeyed on to its most widely-quoted scene, in which the Xermotl began recounting to Gheroun interrogators his revenge mission against the twenty-one Toliai mobsters responsible for killing his two wives.

Niko wished they could turn it off.

“What about you?” Oliver looked at him now. “I hear you’re back to hunting again, even after what happened.”

Niko’s heart dropped. “This is a special case. It’s just a one-time thing.” He didn’t know if he was trying to convince his father or himself at this point.

The older man looked pained, hunching forward in his chair. “Since this day, ten years ago, it’s been nothing but pain begetting pain begetting pain.”

“Dad—”

“First I lost Yessie and Ryen. Then you went on and got ruined hunting their killers—”

“I’m not ruined,” Niko interjected, a tumultuous mixture of hurt and frustration coursing through him. He forced his voice quieter, realizing he’d raised it. “Things are just… different now. But I’m still here.”

Oliver’s face crumpled up in grief and shame. “I’m sorry, Niko, I— This day always does bad things to me. I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Come here, Dad.” He pulled his father into a hearty embrace, holding tight to one of the very last tethers he still had to home and family. Niko didn’t know who parented who more these days. Oliver had become so worn down that Niko often felt he was scrambling to pick up the man’s pieces when he could barely keep himself together. Zann had become less and less helpful every year on that front, his own grief manifesting as a locked door behind which he retreated deeper and deeper. Last year was the first time he’d skipped visiting their father on this painful anniversary.

They hugged for a solid minute, the dramatic soundtrack and explosions of the movie keeping the silence at bay.

“It’s okay,” Niko said, wishing he had someone to tell him the same. “It’s going to be alright, Dad.”

It was a tradition to visit the graveyard on this day, though in previous years, it had always been with Zann and their father. This was Niko’s first time alone—even Oliver couldn’t bear the grief of going, too worn down—and the sorrow and sting of how deeply the fissure throughout all their lives ran clawed through him. Niko sat in front of two small gravestones, staring at the names etched in. They felt so impersonal, so cold, two lives summed up in blunt roles.

YESENIA MARíA ESTRELLA-DELAMAR

CHERISHED MOTHER AND WIFE

RYEN LORENZO DELAMAR

BELOVED SON AND brOTHER

Niko lifted a spray of red roses from his lap and dropped them gently between the two graves. All around him, the soft green grasses of the graveyard swayed in the warm wind. The planted trees made dappled light dance across the ground as their leaves shook. This was one of the few green spaces on the entire moon. It was peaceful here.

A memory came to him of a time when he was younger, unburdened by the stunning pain and loss that lay ahead. He remembered picnicking with his family at Saanas Park, one of the other rare, curated green spaces that cut a rebellious hole into miles of endless city. It had been a warm day like this: windy, with the sun warming them. Niko had shown Zann how to fly a kite that looked like a ship, while on the blue blanket, his mother and stepfather sat together, talking quietly.

His mother held Ryen, who was just a baby then. His dark eyes were wide with astonishment as he stared at their kite. The world had been new to him then, and full of wonder.

Another memory came of his mother. Everything about her had been larger than life, ample and giving. The meals she’d made, her smile. The full, wild curls of her dark hair. Even the shape of her body, which had seemed made for hugging.

He remembered being ten, coming out to her as he’d tearfully confessed a crush he had on a classmate. There was no shame about such things in their household—it was never like that there. But Niko had been so afraid, terrified to the point of being unable to sleep, simply because he’d worried at somehow disappointing his mother that he wasn’t what she’d assumed he was, the need for honesty and transparency always vital to him. He’d been scared that by being different, that he would let her down.

He smiled sadly at the memory of how terrified he’d been, how worked up he’d gotten himself at the idea of revealing his secret to her that had sat so full in his heart. She accepted him perfectly, as she always had, with open arms and a smile. Nothing had changed. It seemed so trivial now, looking back on it all. So simple. But at the time in his young and limited life, it had been the most important thing to him. It had been larger than life itself.

Niko didn’t even remember the other boy’s name anymore. But he remembered how the love and acceptance of his mother had made him feel.

Even in the silence of the years that followed, he would never forget that.

He wanted to see them this way, to remember the times he’d been privileged to share with them. Not the single, painful memory that concluded their lives. It was hard, because so much was built upon that memory and the agonizing pain it had inflicted in its aftermath. He’d had love in his life. He’d had joy. So had his father, so had Zann. And someone had decided to take it away, simply because they could.

He opened his mouth to speak, struggling to know what to say, and knowing anything he did say would change nothing anyway.

“I miss you guys. We all do. Zann’s doing great things. He’s been promoted again to Lead Investigator and they have him on a big case. He’s looking out for the galaxy. Dad’s… Dad’s getting by, and I’m keeping an eye on him. He’s getting a little better every year. He’s been contemplating working again. I’m—”

His words drifted off. He had nothing kind to say about himself.

“I’m—”

A small chime startled him out of the moment, and Zann’s ID appeared. Niko read the text waiting for him.

You still at Dad’s?

No,Niko replied. But it would’ve been nice if you’d shown too, he wanted to write.

Take a look at the news.

Niko’s heart leapt into his throat. He started to open a hologram of the newsfeed but stopped himself, looking over at the two small, marble graves before him, and the dramatic spray of red he’d left on the ground between them. This wasn’t the place.

“I love you,” he said quietly to them.

He wheeled his way back to the car, taking his time to get strapped in and adjusted. Niko’s heart pounded in his ears, the only sound now filling the silence of the car and the stillness of the graveyard beyond. He sat for a while, letting the moments pass, anxious and afraid to open the news. Whatever waited there wouldn’t be good. It couldn’t be.

He opened the hologram and a single headline filled it, crowning several photographs, including the blandly smiling professional portrait Niko had in his case files, and a delicate, rose-pink Xermotl wearing an ornate headdress.

KESTREL KILLS AGAIN

BELOVED YEURONEAN PRINCESS FALLS AT TEA SOIRéE

Witnesses describe ‘harrowing scene’ as assassin chased, cornered, and killed Princess Vhee-vaala

Niko swallowed, leaning forward and resting his forehead against the steering wheel in silence. This wasn’t supposed to happen. A tea soirée hadn’t even made his list of events. Tightly constricting rage and anxiety clawed through his body, making it hard to breathe. He felt nauseous.

Kestrel’s reasons meant nothing. His judgment meant nothing. All that mattered was that Niko made him face the justice he was due—even if it meant taking the man’s life. He knew firsthand what it was like to witness lives ended by apathetic, cruel hands. He knew the indescribable pain of those who were left behind.

It was always personal.

But now it was under his skin.