packages.
The dealer and his entourage of two bodyguards and a third party buyer got up from the table in the building's gloomy interior. She knew that after a meeting, the dealer, who went by the simple nickname Mouse, would exit through the back and into the short alley where his hovercar was parked among the others in the building's ground level lot.
She left a few credit chips for a tip and quickly walked out of the gated area and into the alleyway. It was getting darker but Callidor was a safe city, its capital city Harkor definitely so. Nevertheless, she didn't get more than a half dozen steps into the alley before she realized she wasn't alone. She sensed one person behind her. Normally, her nanites would have enhanced her hearing well enough to make a guess as to body type and gender, but they'd been mostly used up trying to stabilize her after she'd been shot at the secret Priman prison. While they could replicate themselves to a degree using minerals and nutrients she took in, the core numbers were made of exotic materials and came in programmed. The short version was the she was essentially a normal person again, albeit very well trained and overwhelmingly motivated. She was going to continue.
"Hey there," a woman called from in front of her as she stepped out of the shadows. "Can you spare a few credits?"
"Yeah, same here," added another young male as he joined the woman. Halley stopped and looked at the third person closing in from behind, cutting off her escape.
"Seriously?" she asked in disbelief. "You want to shake me down right now? Don't you have something better to do? I'm sort of busy."
"Then how about you just leave us something and be on your way," the man behind her suggested. "Cause we don't have anywhere better to be." His mood darkened as he finished, and Halley knew from long experience he'd use violence without remorse.
Halley didn't have the time for this. She kept walking. As she drew even with the first man, he put his hand on her left shoulder. Without missing a beat, she smacked his elbow down from on top, allowing her to fold his arm towards his chest. She took a step behind his right foot with her own right, then shoulder blocked him in the right shoulder. He flew backwards to the ground, arms flailing as he lost his balance. He fell flat on his back, head making contact with the pavement.
Halley immediately chambered her left leg and lashed out at the woman with a vicious side kick to the chin. The woman was unconscious before the teeth finished flying from her mouth.
She turned to find the third man had run up and tried to grab her shirt front. She grabbed his wrist and rotated him into an arm-bar with an assist from her other arm. As he became bent over at the waist, she used her closed fist to smash him in the nose. Holding him from completely collapsing with the arm bar, she grabbed the handgun that had been poking out of his back waistband. She let him fall in a heap to the ground.
Halley looked at the door where the dealer was supposed to exit and saw that he was already there, bodyguards standing protectively in front of him with hands inside their light jackets, no doubt around the grips of some sort of weaponry.
She simply smiled and expertly disassembled the gun, tossing the parts as she looked at the entourage. Initiator battery went left, capacitor went right, top of the slide and main discharge coil ended up on the ground in front of her as she dropped the stripped frame.
Halley approached the group, hands held out to her sides. She took slow, small steps towards them, trying to suppress the