The group looked right at the spot where Roland was standing, but none could see his form. The countdown inside his HUD was down to seconds now. The male Brenine waved a card in front of the panel beside one of the apartment doors, forcing it aside and allowing music to blare out, filling the corridor. The countdown was close to zero. The bounty hunter followed them inside and scanned the new environment as quickly as he could. He needed somewhere to hide for a minute, so the suit could cool down and recharge.
“Bovaasi!” Hon Valorga greeted the male Brenine with a wide smile. “Bovaasi you have surpassed yourself with these fine specimen!” Hon examined the women as if they were a product.
Roland ducked into the nearest room and placed his back flat against the wall. The suit powered down and the nanocelium returned to their original dormant state. A new countdown appeared inside his HUD, informing the bounty hunter of when he could next use the cloaking systems. Roland decided to take the time learn what he could.
“I’m in.” Roland didn’t have to worry about the noise level, thanks to the overly loud music - not that any sound escaped the suit’s helmet.
“Me too,” Ch’len replied. “Bad news is; there are no cameras inside any of the penthouses. I’m blind.”
Roland’s training had provided him with reflexes he could no longer control. From his few seconds inside the penthouse, he had clocked five Brenine, including Hon and the male escort from the hallway. There were ten females, including the nine arrivals. He had seen all of the male Brenine packing weapons, as well as the female Trillik, who was relaxing on a sofa by the curving window that spanned the entire apartment.
“I’m going silent for a minute.” Roland removed his helmet and peered around the door frame.
“What do you think, Darja?” Hon Valorga addressed the female Trillik. “Potential, yes?” The Brenine looked every bit the slimy bastard Roland had imagined him to.
“We will have to put them through their paces, but yes, I see potential.” The Trillik looked at the girls with four black, hungry eyes.
Hon laughed and poured himself a flute of golden liquid. “Bovaasi, Lago, take them through and get them ready.”
Bovaasi and the one called Lago escorted the girls out of sight. Now there was only Hon, two male Brenine and Darja, the Trillik. They laughed at something Hon said and enjoyed a drink together. Beyond them, Roland could see vehicles of every size passing by the curved window, oblivious and ignorant of the crimes going on around them.
Roland replaced his helmet and sighed. “I think they’re about to have some kind of orgy.”
“Why do you sound so sad?” Ch’len’s tone was that of confusion.
“Because I’m not here to watch live porn, nutsack! Gor-van could leave Byzantial any minute and Hon’s the only one who knows where he’s holding up. I need the information inside that fucker’s head and I need it now!”
Ch’len’s munching came over the comm-link. “Just burst in and show them that hideous human face of yours. Most people think you guys can melt them with your mind!”
“I need him on his own…” Roland was running through past missions, trying to think of different methods.
Ch’len’s next outburst nearly burst Roland’s eardrum. “I know what to do!”
Roland shook his head, wishing he could poke his ear through the helmet. “What?”
“Give me a minute!” Ch’len’s comm went dead.
Roland crouched down and looked around the door again. Bovaasi and Lago had reappeared with the Laronians and the two female Brenine. The new prostitutes had replaced their clothes with revealing lingerie and high heels. They might not be human, but Roland still found them attractive. He tried not to think about how long it had been since he had had sex. He could remember the faces of the women he had bedded aboard the Gommarian, during his brief time there, but found he couldn’t remember their names. The self-realisation that he was an asshole didn’t stop him from focusing on the mission.
“What the hell are you doing, Len?”
Ch’len’s comm crackled back to life. “Do you remember when The Laronian contacted us with all those threats after the incident at Protocorps? Well, the Rackham recorded the conversation.”
“Great, my ship has an answer phone. How’s this going to help?” Roland looked back into the apartment as Hon Valorga was helping one of the female Brenine to lose her bra.
“Watch…”
The music suddenly died down when Hon’s apartment alerted him to an incoming call. The other Brenine ignored it, but Darja looked at Hon, indicating the glass table-top in the lounge, which informed them the call was originating from Vallara, the homeworld of all Laronians. Hon killed the music entirely and ushered everyone to be quiet.
“There’s only one call I get from Vallara,” Hon said to Darja.
After he accepted the call, the table projected a holographic square with the image of The Laronian, sitting at his desk. The crime lord’s unusual helmet covered his features, instead presenting them with a view of a swirling galaxy as if the spiral of stars were inside his head.
“Are we alone?” The Laronian asked with a serious tone.
Hon hesitated. Until a second ago, the Brenine had been the biggest, baddest criminal in the room. He clicked his fingers and ordered everyone to leave. Their speed was too slow, however, and the Brenine resorted to an outburst, while simultaneously pushing one of his guards in the direction of the door.
The Laronian put his feet up on the desk, as he had when he threatened Roland three months ago. “This is all taking too long. I’m getting bored…”
Hon wiped the sweat from his forehead, aware of what happened to people who bored the unstable crime boss. All the while, Ch’len was sniggering to himself down Roland’s comm-link.
“What did you do; rearrange his words?” Roland sank back into the shadows, allowing the group to pass him in the hallway and leave the penthouse.
Ch’len was still laughing. “It was so easy because of that stupid voice of his! All I had to do was trick his array into thinking the call was from Vallara.”
The cloaking systems came back online. He activated them with his thumb and exited the room, entering the dim penthouse. Hon Valorga was standing opposite him, on the other side of the faint hologram.
“Boss?” Hon looked frantically from the hologram to the table. “Are you there? Can you hear me?”
The Laronian continued to move around and talk into the camera, but Ch’len had deactivated the message’s sound, leaving only the visual of the message. Hon tapped the menu on the glass table, trying to figure out what malfunction would be the death of him.
Roland spoke into his comm-link. “End the call.”
Ch’len did as he was asked, deactivating the hologram in front of the bounty hunter. Hon gasped, assured that he had just offended the scariest being in the galaxy. Roland decided to re-educate the Brenine and shut down the cloaking systems. Hon yelled in fright and jumped back, falling on to the sofa in a mad scramble to get away. His instinct was to run; that was a good thing, Roland could work with that.
Without taking his red eyes off the menacing figure, clad in black, Hon reached for his gun on the table. Roland reacted without thought and kicked the edge of the table, causing Hon to overshoot his reach. There was no hesitation from Roland, who marched over the table and descended on the terrified Brenine. With rough hands, Hon was dragged off the sofa and flipped onto the glass table with enough force to shatter it.
Roland took a breath and slowly walked around the bent frames of the low table. Hon was on all fours now, scurrying through the shards of glass, dazed and disorientated. His pale hand went for the fallen gun, but Roland was quick to stamp on the Brenine’s knuckles. Hon screamed before blood poured from under his hand, now impaled with a dozen shards of glass.
“Who… are… you?” Hon looked up at the shiny black glass of Roland’s helmet.
The bounty hunter pulled the helmet off with a gentle hiss a
nd revealed his grizzled, human features. Hon Valorga’s terror became tenfold at the sight of him. His squirming only caused more pain in his hand, and Roland dug his heel in as a show of dominance. The Brenine’s strange tentacle-like tongue was visible, whipping around inside his mouth.
Roland knew the pain would push adrenaline round the Brenine’s body, bringing his fight or flight response to the surface. As an expert in this particular field, the ex-agent knew that more pain was required to keep the victim terrified enough to be pliable, but awake enough to answer questions. To ensure there was no fight left in the pimp, Roland used his helmet as weapon and whipped it across Hon’s face. His thick tongue lashed out and sucked up the blood that spilled from his nose.
Along with the pain, the victim had to feel a sense of helplessness. Hon had to know that Roland was his new god and that only he could grant the Brenine peace and freedom. To enforce this dominance, Roland released him from the grip of his boot and allowed Hon to crawl away, out of the glass. After a few seconds of freedom, the bounty hunter pounced again, this time flipping the Brenine onto his back and delivering a swift punch to the face. The moment of pain and disorientation was all Roland needed to drop his weight onto Hon, using both of his knees to trap the alien’s arms. In the same motion, Roland retrieved the Terran blade from the base of his back and activated the blade. Hon didn’t like what happened next.
Roland covered the alien’s mouth, stifling his pain-filled scream. His wicked tongue probed at his gloved palm, desperate to find a gap and let out a cry. The Terran blade was firmly planted in Hon’s already cut and broken hand, nailing him to the polished floor.
Bending down, Roland placed his mouth next to the Brenine’s ear. “Does that answer who I am?”
Hon moaned and squirmed as tears ran down the sides of his face. The Brenine knew that death was sitting on top of him.
Roland spoke in a quiet and calm voice, having learned years ago how menacing it made him sound. “I have questions. You have answers. Tell me the truth and you get to walk out of here with all your limbs.” Roland glanced at Hon’s mutilated hand. “Well, most of them. If you lie, I’ll take you apart piece by piece until you look more like a Shay than a Brenine. Question one,” Roland immediately placed his thumb over Hon’s left eye and pressed firmly. “Where is Gor-van Tanar hiding?”
The Brenine was perfectly still, well aware that his answer determined whether he lost an eye or not. Roland carefully lifted his hand from the alien’s mouth and waited for the answer. It was sick, but a part of Roland hoped that Hon would lie, giving him cause to push his thumb into the pimp’s eye socket.
“He’ll kill me…” Hon whispered, pleadingly.
“Wrong answer.” Roland squeezed and didn’t stop until the joint of his thumb was inside Hon’s eye.
Every part of the Brenine wriggled dramatically in agony, desperately fighting against Roland’s weight. With his hand once again covering the alien’s mouth, the shrieking was kept to a minimum. The bounty hunter finally removed his thumb and wiped the blood and juices on Hon’s suit jacket. The comm-link in his helmet went dead again as Ch’len disconnected.
It took a minute before Hon’s attention could be focused again. Roland took the time to visualise Li’ara’s face and remember how helpless he felt when the chamber exploded at Protocorps. If she was truly still alive he would learn of it, and if that meant he carved a bloody path across the Conclave, then so be it. He had promised Kalian he would bring her back safely, and he failed. That sense of loss and failure drove his mind to bad places.
The bounty hunter placed his other thumb over Hon’s remaining eye. “Question one,” Roland repeated aggressively. “Where is Gor-van Tanar hiding? I know you provide him with girls!”
The Brenine whimpered and hesitated. “He’s in the Qelt Wastes!”
Roland had never heard of it, but it didn’t sound like a place someone as rich and resourceful as Gor-van would stay. Despite that, the bounty hunter was sure Hon hadn’t lied to him.
He pressed his thumb a little firmer into the Brenine’s eye, eliciting a pathetic yelp. “Well don’t stop there…”
Hon Valorga’s lip quivered. “He has a safe house out there -”
“Where’s there?” Roland’s interruption made the Brenine jump.
“It’s in the southern hemisphere, near Q’altat. It’s just a desert. The exact coordinates are on my terminal.”
“Details…”
Now Hon could see light at the end of the tunnel. Answers kept pain at bay, giving him the illusion that Roland was reasonable and would, therefore, allow him to live when they were finished. Little did he know that the bounty hunter from Earth was far from reasonable.
“It doesn’t look like much. It’s an old house, simple in design. Of course, Gor-van stays underneath it, in the real complex.”
“Security…” Roland lightened the pressure over Hon’s eye.
“Sensors detect anything ten feet off the ground. No ship can sneak up on the house. As for personnel, I have no idea.”
Roland returned the pressure over Hon’s eye, sensing omission.
The Brenine squirmed again. “Okay, okay! I don’t know exactly how many guys he has, but he always orders twelve girls on top of his three. I don’t know if that’s one girl per guard though.”
Roland lifted his thumb somewhat. “Escape routes? Hidden tunnels?”
“None, just a hangar underground, disguised as more desert.”
Roland chewed it over for a moment, letting the Brenine fear what might come next. He didn’t think Hon was lying to him, but aliens were harder to read than humans.
“Okay, Hon.” Roland removed a small device from his waist, used for cracking codes on safes, and placed it under the Brenine’s head. “Now you’re resting on a pressure mine,” he lied. “So do yourself a favour and stay very still.” Roland lifted his thumb from his victim’s only eye and retrieved the snap-shackles from a compartment in the suit’s thigh. “This is going to hurt. Don’t scream.”
He ripped the Terran blade from Hon’s hand and replaced it on his back. The Brenine did his best to stifle his scream and keep his head still. Roland put Hon’s wrists together and used the snap-shackles to bind his hands. The stick snapped around his pale skin until both ends bonded together.
“Now if your info turns out to be shit, I’ll come back and kill you a lot slower than that pressure mine.” Roland meant it. If the information was bogus, he would happily return and take his time sending Hon into the next life.
Roland didn’t deactivate his cloaking systems until the Rackham’s hold sealed up behind him. He happily removed the helmet and unceremoniously dumped it in the kitchen on his way to the bridge. He didn’t even attempt to take the rest of the suit off; he would need Ch’len’s help in that department.
Kicking the empty bottles of beer aside, Roland dropped into his chair and brought up the nav array, searching for the Qelt Wastes. Ch’len didn’t say anything, clearly uncomfortable with Roland’s recent proclivities. That was fine by Roland; he didn’t keep the Ch’kara around for chit-chat. The silence made the bounty hunter uncomfortable, however. Even the background sound of Ch’len’s munching was oddly absent.
“Nice work with The Laronian thing,” Roland commented as he plotted a course for the Qelt Wastes.
“Thanks. Nice work with the…” Ch’len searched for the word. “Well, I guess there is no replacing the word torture.”
Roland chewed over his response. “It’s the only way…”
“I don’t have a problem with you torturing dirtbags like Hon Valorga or Lan-vid if that’s what it takes. My problem is…”
“What?” Roland pressed.
“If, and it’s a huge if, but if Li’ara is still alive and she miraculously survived the explosion, where’s she been for the last three months?”
That same question had plagued Roland’s mind, but it was a question he couldn’t answer until he solved the first mystery; how did s
he survive?
Roland had no answer for Ch’len. “The next piece of the puzzle is in the Qelt Wastes. One mystery at a time, Len.”
9
Kalian stood by the Advent’s air-lock with anticipation. Despite all the shit that the universe had piled onto his shoulders over the last year, the thought of actually stepping foot on the planet that truly birthed humanity was exciting. For the briefest of moments, he was able to think of something other than Li’ara. But only for a moment.
“A suit has been prepared for you,” Naydaalan announced as he entered the small hold. “It will provide three hours of oxygen.”
Kalian offered the Novaarian a smug smile. “I’ve already got a suit.”
Using his Terran abilities, Kalian increased the strength of the electromagnetic field around both of his hands. This prompted the nanocelium in his suit to extend across his bare skin and cover his hands with strong, but flexible, gloves. With his right hand, Kalian cupped his fingers, activating the holographic menu that emitted from the ends of his fingers. A couple of flexes between the digits commanded the nanocelium around his neck to change shape and form a sleek helmet that completely coated his head and face. There were no apparent eyes on the outside, but Kalian was given a view from the inside as if there was no covering at all.
Naydaalan looked at his own suit which, despite its technological elegance, appeared bulky and archaic in comparison. The Novaarian’s face was cast in a purple light behind the glass front of his helmet. A small mech hovered by his side, its contents filled with the tools and instruments that would be needed to fix the ship’s long-range sensor dish.
Naydaalan used the panel on his lower arm to open the hatch and lower the ramp. Kalian was ready to adapt his eyes to the natural light that flooded the hold, but the suit took care of the glare. What awaited them was oddly beautiful, in its own way.
Kalian and Naydaalan stepped out and looked upon the amalgamation of jungle and city. The opposing landscapes had come together over the course of two hundred thousand years, combating and evolving to weather the ever-changing levels of radiation. There wasn’t a single building or Terran-made object left intact. The roads and footpaths were indistinguishable, overgrown with thick green and blue vegetation. Broken arches and burnt corners poked out between the branches and weeds. Judging by the space in which the Advent had landed, Kalian guessed them to be standing in what was once a courtyard - though it could easily have been the foundations of an ancient building.
The Terran Cycle Boxset Page 105
