Rebel (The United Federation Marine Corps) by Jonathan P. Brazee

right behind me.  With your sweats, Georgina O’Merkhin herself wouldn’t turn a head,” she said, referring to the current flavor-of-the-month holo sex-kitten star.
    “We need to get one of them to want to come with us, not bore one to death.  Go back to your room and put on a pair of your dance tights, at least.  And put this on,” she added, reaching to the floor and picking up one of her small tops that she had dropped there.
    “Really?” Michi asked, dangling the top from one finger.  “Don’t you think it’s a little small?” 
    “Of course it is, girl.  You’ve got a little more to stuff inside than I do, but so what?  You want him to be thinking about something else before you go all highlander samurai on his ass.”
    Michi laughed out loud at that.  “Highlander samurai?” 
    “Yeah, I thought of it last night.  Brills, right?  You’re First Family, and Clan.   You’ve got them both by birth, and samurais are pretty kick-ass.”
    Tamara was excited, and her voice was a pitch higher than normal.  The thought of going out and jumping a jack had hyped her up. 
    Michi went back into her room, slid off her sweats, then rooted around her dance kit for a pair of clean tights.  All were dirty, so she took the pair with the least amount of smell and put them on.  The top Tamara had given her was another story, though.  It was tiny!  She pulled it over her head and worked it down, trying to put everything in place.  She took a quick look in the mirror and almost took it right back off.  It didn’t cover much of anything, and while not a prude, Michi was still Clan, and as such, she was not as open as her roommate. In the end, she just zipped up her cozy, hiding the mini-top from view.
    “That’s better,” Tamara said as Michi came out.  “Let’s go get this done.”
    Michi was still hesitant about this “mission,” as Tamara kept referring to it.  Last time, she had been running on emotion and a mindless drive for vengeance.  Now, she wasn’t as driven.  Killing the jack had extinguished part of the flame that burned within her.  She had never envisioned actually killing a man, but now that it had happened, she was nervous as the two left the apartment and started downtown. 
    This was not a “kill” mission, however, as she had stressed to Tamara.  In the first place, killing the jack before had been a fluke.  Unless you used a weapon of some sort, killing with one blow almost never happened, despite what was shown in the flicks.  It took endless pummelings to have the potential for death.
    In the second place, Michi realized that she really didn’t have the stomach for it.  She hated the jacks and all they stood for, but killing someone took a person into another realm, one to which she really didn’t want to travel.  Michi still clung to her past self: the dancer, the treasured First Family girl, the student, the fiancé.  She liked that life, and she was afraid of the violent undertow which threatened to sweep her into a darker, more sinister world.
    Without Tamara, she probably would have never ventured out again like this, eventually going back to her family and apologizing.  She knew they would embrace her return.  Instead, she was following her half-crazy roomie out into the night to jump a jack.  Maybe she was the half-crazy one for agreeing to it. 
    They made their way towards the Gut again.  The lack of working surveillance vaulted it to the top of their preferred hunting grounds.  The shrine Michi had used before was on the other side of the Slab, so this time, they stopped a few blocks short of the Gut, gave each other a kiss on the cheek as if parting (for the sake of any surveillance recordings), and then split up.  Michi went into an industrial parts store where she changed cozies in the toilet before coming out and walking into the Gut itself.
    There was an old statue of some ancient Scottish hero in the middle of the Gut, a testament to when