"How about another Marfon Blue for the road?" I asked, noticing Tabby had finished the beer I'd left on the table.
"That is acceptable," Steele answered, pulling out a glass and pouring into it as he spoke.
Chapter 12
Hunted
"There are too many of you," Miko complained. "There is no way to hide such a group."
"What about three?" I asked.
We'd gathered in a small room behind the bar. Bray and Hunter were currently nursing hangovers as the impairment med-patches pushed nano-bots through their systems to remove the alcohol. "You wouldn't dare," Bray said, through clenched teeth.
"Dare what? Leave you guys behind?” I asked, exasperated. “You're right, I wouldn't. I'm sending you, Hunter, and Jonathan back with Miko. Sendrei, Tabby and I will draw the Kasumi hunters off."
"That is a bad plan," Miko said. "Five Kasumi have given chase. You will not survive."
"Can you take these three?" I asked, pointing at Jonathan and the two crew members.
"The bounty is on the heads of Sendrei Buhari, Liam Hoffen, Marny Bertrand, and Tabitha Masters. It is you they will pursue."
"We need to warn Marny," I said.
"I am sending a warning," Jonathan nodded. "We implore you to be careful, Liam."
"It's definitely high on my list of priorities," I said. "Give us a couple of minutes to make sure they're on our trail. Then you guys get moving."
"Then go," Miko said. "I have another set in thirty minutes."
I handed my 1911 pistol to Bray. "No hesitation," I said. "There's a lot riding on our entire crew."
She handed back the pistol. "No way am I taking that. The heat's coming after you. We'll be fine."
I refused to accept the pistol. "I always carry an extra weapon," I said, looking over to the door where Sendrei and Tabby had moved so they could keep an eye on anyone entering the bar. "And besides, it's not like either of them are going to let me take a shot."
"See you aboard, Captain," she said, pushing the pistol into the band of her vac-suit.
"Copy that," I said and hustled back to join Sendrei and Tabby.
"Let's go," Tabby said, leaning her shoulder against the swinging exit door and throwing the cloak she'd been wearing on the floor beside her. In one hand she held a laser pistol and in the other I saw the tip of a nano-blade.
"You should not go out …" Steele said, his voice trailing off as we walked through the first set of vestibule doors.
"Go!" Sendrei shouted and Tabby hit the front door in a dive, tucking and rolling as she exited. The sound of gunfire rang out and the door swung backward. Together, Sendrei and I raced through after Tabby.
The three of us had trained as a quartet, most often with Marny running the show. The fact was, we'd also drilled on three-man teams and knew what was expected. My job was relatively simple. I was to keep from getting hit and mark targets. In combat, it's impossible to hit someone you can't see.
The gunfire had come from atop one of the buildings and instead of returning fire, Tabby sprinted to the end of the street, willing us to catch up as she would not take the corner unless we were close enough to support her.
Close-in blasts rang out as Sendrei laid down covering fire at the position I had marked as the shooter, then together we sprinted to Tabby's position.
"I don't have any targets," I said, exasperated as we got close.
"They're using the buildings," Tabby said. As a unit, we flowed around the corner of the building and cleared our assigned fire lanes. "That's what Miko did when she tracked us."
"Let's do it," I answered, grabbing Sendrei's arm. Tabby, immediately understanding my objective, grabbed his other side and together we used our grav-suits to lift him to the top of the two-story building flanking the street. Not unexpectedly, gunfire rang out as our prey tracked us.
"I'm hit," Tabby said as we dropped Sendrei heavily onto the rain-slicked roof.
"How bad?" I asked as the three of us hunkered down for a moment.
"Slug. Not sure if it exited. Their ammo can pierce our armor," she said, slapping a med patch over the tiny hole. "I'm good. Let's move."
Once we’d cleared the side of the building, my AI picked up three threats. It had been tracking one in particular who was in our line of sight. I hastily marked its position and almost immediately, both Tabby and Sendrei fired, eliciting a yelp.
"Move," I said, unnecessarily as they both took off.
The sound of a bullet as it passes your ear and cuts through the atmosphere is one of the most intensely disturbing sounds a person can hear. I'd taken to gliding along behind Tabby and Sendrei, searching the night for our pursuers, when the first bullet zipped past. The second caught me straight in the shoulder and spun me around. At first I felt no pain, but I knew that was only the initial shock.
My AI traced back along the trajectory of the bullet, illuminating my attacker. In a single fluid movement, Tabby spun and fired a twelve-shot spray into the darkness, directed precisely at the location highlighted.
"Can you move?" she asked to the sound of answering automatic gunfire. Strangely enough, the bullets weren’t coming our way, but were lighting up the rooftop across the street where Tabby had sent her last volley. We watched as a dark figure spun out of control on his way down to the street, finger apparently seizing on the trigger as he fell.
"Go," I said. "I'll be fine."
Grateful to be able to glide, I trailed behind Sendrei and Tabby as I struggled to pull out a med patch with my left hand. I was surprised when a heavy body hit me from the side and pushed me down onto the graveled rooftop. My suit hardened as a blade slashed across my chest. With my only working arm, I grappled with my assailant, rolling over and kicking my legs into the female Kasumi's midsection. I saw what looked to be annoyance at her blade's failure to find pay dirt.
She rolled away and back onto her feet, only to be tackled by Tabby, who landed with a knee straight to the Kasumi's side. The sound of steel-on-steel caused me to spin as I fumbled left-handed, trying to draw my backup flechette from an ankle holster. Silhouetted against the distant purple lights of the Nexus bar, Sendrei blocked the blade of one attacker with his sword, kicking away from a second. Shots rang out as one of the Kasumi decided to upgrade the fight from knives to guns.
Steadying my left hand, I fired. Intentional in my desire to miss Sendrei, I over-compensated and my darts flew wide. I dropped the weapon, knowing I was just as likely to hit Sendrei as I was his attackers. I grabbed my nano blade and rushed toward the melee.
The sound of high-pitched sirens interrupted the fight, and Sendrei's attackers broke away to flee over the side of the building. Turning to Tabby, I watched as she violently wrenched the female Kasumi's arm backward at an impossible angle until I heard the sound of breaking cartilage and bone. The howl from the Kasumi left no doubt as to the pain she suffered.
Blinking red lights preceded a bright white wash of light that illuminated the building's roof. Demands for the immediate cessation of hostilities were pumped over loud speakers and the three of us dropped to our knees, pushing weapons to the side and placing our hands behind our heads – well at least, I was able to place my left hand behind my head. The pain of my wound nearly caused me to black out as we waited to see what happened next.
Unexpectedly, the female Kasumi stood from where Tabby had dropped her, her arm dangling at an impossible angle. She attempted to run from the roof, only to be cut down by a short burst of gunfire from one of the law enforcement vehicles that had arrived.
"What were you doing atop the warehouse building?" a rat-faced humanoid in a uniform asked me for the tenth time. I'd learned this species was an Abelineian native and more importantly, their medical technology wasn't nearly as good as what we had on Gaylon Brighton. While they'd stopped the bleeding, my wound felt like it was on fire.
"Our suits have limited gravity lift," I said. "We were running from the Kasumi. We just wanted to get back to our ship."
&n
bsp; "Why are you in Bhusal?" he asked, for the tenth time.
"Trade," I said. "We dropped a load of experimental bots off with a local corporation. I have the bill of lading if you'd let me get it."
A knock on the door got our attention and my interrogator's whiskers flicked. No doubt he wasn't getting what he wanted.
"Their story checks out, Jeggs," a second Abelineian said. "We ran down their contact with the Bessock company. These three just unloaded cargo from a ship half a kilometer from the Nexus bar no more than five hours ago. Their ship came through the Kneble wormhole three days ago. I think they're on the up and up."
"Then why'd they get jumped by Kasumi? Traders don't get hunted by Kasumi. They're up to something, I can feel it," my interrogator spat.
"Captain says we gotta let 'em go. Bessock is threatening a lawsuit if we hold 'em. Apparently, they got some tech Bessock is real excited about."
"Yeah, I'll bet," Jeggs replied, turning away in frustration from the junior officer. Jeggs waited in silence until the underling left, then slammed the door. "It's always the same thing with these corporate types. So, why don't you tell me what you are really doing here?"
"You gonna let us go?" I asked.
"Don't have much of a choice," he answered.
"Look, I get it, you're just doing your job, " I said. "I appreciate that you showed up. We were taking a pretty good beating."
"Nah, you weren’t," he said. "That was a full Kasumi pride after you. You know how much that costs?"
"No idea," I answered.
"A million credits. Minimum," he said. "Thing that itches my ass is that the three of you are still alive and walking around. There's more going on here than you're saying. I can smell it." The end of his nose twitched, emphasizing the last thing he said. "Nobody crosses Kasumi and lives to talk about it."
"I guess you guys showed up just in time," I said.
"Yeah. Whatever you say, bub."
Chapter 13
Trading Up
Happy to be underway, I sat back into Gaylon Brighton's medical tank and waited for the fluid to fill. Even though the tank's medical gel was heated to exact body temperature and was a neutral PH, it always felt a little creepy as it covered my skin. While med patches put out the fire in my shoulder, the bullet had shattered several bones and the Abelineian medical techs hadn’t managed to even set it correctly.
I'd been given a choice between sleeping through the surgery or staying awake and I'd chosen to stay awake. If you were claustrophobic, the sensation of the medical gel covering your face and the confined space within the glass and metal enclosure were about as bad as it gets. It was something Tabby disliked a great deal. Since I'd been old enough to light my arc-jets, Big Pete (my dad) had sent me into holes in asteroids to set charges and made me slither into broken mining machines. That kind of claustrophobia wasn't my issue. Put me in a room with a hundred people and no way out, now that was a problem.
Tabby, who I made sure had time in the tank before me, had been gut shot. For a normal person, this would have been fatal. Many of her lower organs had been replaced, though, when she'd lost her legs in the pirate attack on our childhood home, Colony-40. The bullet had done quite a bit of damage, but her synthetic intestines had the capacity to simply shut down and seal off in the case of traumatic injury. In fact, the Abelineian officer hadn't even realized she'd been shot, given that her suit had sealed around the bullet's entry point.
After ninety minutes and some very odd-feeling snaps, tugs, tears and jolts, the tank's AI finally announced that I was good to go. In fact, I was even slightly better off than I had been before the fight. Apparently, I'd sustained injury to my rotator cuff from repeated use and impact while playing pod-ball growing up. The shoulder hadn't caused me much trouble, but under the right circumstances, I could hear it click when I moved it around.
"Any sign of the Kasumi ship?" I asked, joining Jonathan and Tabby on the bridge. We'd been underway for four days and hadn't seen any sign of the mercenaries.
"Nothing has changed in the last hour," Tabby said, peevishly.
"What's eating you?" I asked.
"If those cops hadn't shown up, we'd have put those Kasumi down," she said. "And we'd know why they were hunting us."
"The cop who was talking to me said a group of Kasumi that size would get at least a million credits," I said. "I can think of exactly two of our enemies who could afford that: Strix or Kroerak."
"How the frak would Kroerak hire mercs?"
"It is not as outrageous as you suggest," Jonathan said. "We saw the Kroerak successfully negotiate with Belirand Corporation. The Kasumi are well known mercenaries, easily as well-known in some circles as Belirand."
"Give us an over/under," I said. "Strix vs. Kroerak."
"A poll of the collective shows eighty-two percent believe Kroerak are behind the attack, eight percent identify Strix and the remaining members abstain, believing we have not gathered sufficient information," he answered.
"I received a message from Marny this morning," I said, changing subjects. "She says everything is quiet and they haven't had any central core traffic through Petersburg. She has increased their security posture, whatever that means. Also, Abasi have come through with their promise to supply armaments. She says we won't recognize Hornblower when we get back. They've added five thousand tonnes of armor to her and cut down on her profile a little."
"Munay still causing Marny trouble?" Tabby asked.
I chuckled. "That I'd like to see. She has a short fuse for insubordination. I also told her we'd be out for another five or six ten-days at a minimum."
"Shouldn't we reach Jarwain in three ten-days?" Tabby asked.
"Right. Still got to get home, though," I said. "And that's if we come up dry in Jarwain." I didn't realize at the time just how ironic that statement would end up being.
The contrast between the unnamed sector we'd been sailing through for the last two ten-days and Aeratroas's central core couldn't have been more dramatic. Instead of ships stacked in every corner, we hadn't seen evidence of a single ship for over one hundred twenty hours. Time was marked by shift changes, worm-hole transitions, card-games and getting my head pounded by Tabby or Sendrei. After our run-in with the Kasumi, both had decided I needed to brush up on my martial skills. Best I could tell, the only skill I was brushing up on was how to take a beating.
No one was happier than me when the unrelenting boredom was interrupted by our arrival in the Arkanis system. The system boasted two features of interest: a huge, dying yellow star and the sand-planet, Jarwain. The population on the surface was listed as 50,000 Jarwainians. We hoped for 49,999 Jarwainians and one helpful Piscivoru.
"That's a big planet on which to find one little alien," Tabby said, pulling the virtual beige ball that was Jarwain onto the forward holo projector. "Tell me we aren't searching the entire thing for one Piscivoru, especially when we don't even know what they look like."
"No. Zeke Steele said there was a single colony of Piscivoru," I said. "The Jarwain village he is sending us to is small. I'm betting someone down there has an idea where that colony is located."
"Right – because Steele wouldn't send us on a wild goose chase," Tabby said. It had been an annoyingly long seventy-hour approach from the wormhole and I shared Tabby's impatience to get on with the search.
"It is not to his benefit to deceive," Jonathan said. "As an information broker who provides bad information, he would lose credibility."
"There isn't a single ship in orbit," Sendrei said as we slowed and adjusted the ship's attitude to high orbit.
"Think they'll have fuel?" Tabby asked, a wry expression on her face.
"Doesn't look hopeful," I said. "All hands, prepare for atmospheric entry."
"I am unable to find a central authority for the planet's sole township," Jonathan said as we burned through the atmosphere.
"They might not need it," I said.
I leveled our flight out at eight thousand meter
s, staying above a dust storm that was blowing across and obscuring the town. We'd come in at the tail end of what looked like an intense storm and I held our elevation until it had passed before setting Gaylon Brighton down at the town's edge.
"Not much of a town," Tabby observed, looking out the armor glass screen. She was right; the buildings were nothing more than low rounded brick buildings, haphazardly collected over a hundred-meter area. "How many natives are we looking at?"
"Our scans show we are only seeing the topmost portion of the structures. Habitation is primarily underground. We estimate sixty villagers," Jonathan said. " Outside temperature is ten degrees and the position of the planet within its orbit around the star suggests we have arrived at the beginning of the summer period."
"Ten degrees for summer? That's only a bit above freezing," I said. "You'd think a desert planet like this would be hot."
"The star produces minimally-viable energy for inhabitation," Jonathan answered. "This society is likely subsistence based."
"Not following," I said.
"The star's low energy production combined with minimal available water, makes it likely the Jarwain people spend most of their daily efforts in producing food and maintaining shelter. Such a society is likely to be unwelcoming to strangers, as the impact of more bodies requiring sustenance will cause shortages," he continued.
"They don't look that unfriendly," Tabby said, waving at someone outside the ship.
I followed her gaze and discovered that several dozen people, all dressed in robes of varying shades of beige, stood outside and were waving at us.
"Caution should be taken, Captain," Jonathan warned. "There is no authority here and this ship alone represents more wealth than is held by the entire population of the planet."
"Sendrei, Tabby, you're with me," I said. "Jonathan, I'd like you and the crew to remain behind and monitor, just in case things get out of control."
Pursuit of the Bold Page 14
