Dead Man's Hammer — Christina Engela

Deanna was just another third rate colony in the Terran Empire â€" and it was pretty much as boring a lump of rock as could be expected. That is, until Gary Beck, aka Beck the Badfeller ran over an obsidian crow with his Jeepo and didn't have a spare tire. (Things pretty much went down hill from there.)

There was an assassin in town now and she had a score to settle. She was pretty, but as most poets will tell you, beauty can be deceiving. The same poets, who would write about Helen of Troy as the face that launched a thousand ships, would write about Villainessa Tittle as the bitch that sank them. As an assassin, she was the worst kind; this meant that she took pride in her work, enjoyed what she did for a living â€" and above all, that she was bloody good at it. And this time unfortunately, it was absolutely 100 percent personal.