That, at least, was true.
“And being a practical little flower, you chose a profession that guaranteed a safe, stable income,” whispered the bandit with smarmy eyes.
Charley just smiled, but inside her senses were screaming at her to get away.
“You know, I had one of my men check you out,” he went on smoothly. “You don’t work here. Where did Teks find you?”
Charley assumed a look of frightened desperation. “I was a stowaway on a tech freighter,” she said. “Please don’t tell anyone.”
“Mmm, no fixed address,” Fallon mused, playing with Charley’s hair. “No one would miss you if you disappeared.”
7
The bandit said it lightly, as if it were something of a joke. Charley smiled back, but felt anything but comfortable.
“But first, I think it’s time to get to know each other.”
Fallon leaned in for a kiss. Charley felt her tongue impact against his unnaturally sharp teeth. She allowed his tongue to worm against her own, blood tricking down her throat.
“You know, I think everything’s finally coming together for me,” Fallon said when he finally extracted himself. His hand drifted to Charley’s ample cleavage, then down her hip, her thigh.
“I track myself on certain indicators,” the bandit whispered. “My virgin kill was the first sign that I was building a power base. Building a fleet was another. Being able to spend half my time at the Purple Sands, free of charge, is yet another. But tonight I might just have surpassed myself. Killing a whore without anyone batting an eyelid would have to be the perfect demonstration of power.”
Fallon’s hand paused at Charley’s blaster. “Expecting trouble?” he asked with a sneer.
“Not really,” Charley replied, lifting the small man by the belt and tossing him off the rail. The little weasel screamed all the way down the slope face of the pyramid, eventually tumbling onto a flagpole above the casino’s main entrance. Charley watched in horror as the body impaled itself on the flagpole and stuck there. Fallon’s arms and legs flailed for a moment, then went limp. Screams resounded from all levels of the casino and an alarm went off in several locations at once. She heard raised voices outside the penthouse and with a sinking feeling she realized that the entire island would now be gunning for her.
Her wrist pad glowed green and with an incredible sense of relief she heard Vinnie’s voice over the com.
“I kind of noticed that,” Charley said, unable to remove the panic from her voice. “Just tell me what to do.”
“’We’?” Charley asked. “Who are you -”
But Vinnie was gone. Charley huddled against the balcony wall, watching the penthouse inside. The knob at the front door turned slowly. A blaster barrel appeared, then a man’s head. Charley wished she had her targeting computer. She slowed her breathing and drew her plasma pistol. The man had entered and was creeping toward the balcony by the time Charley got around to aiming. The guard’s eyes widened in surprise as Charley pumped several holes in his chest. His body armor deflected several shots but one hit a join in his lower abdomen and he fell with a cry of pain. A second guard rushed through the door and this time Charley was forced to fire purely on reflex. Which proved to be razor sharp. Half of the guard’s neck was removed in a flash. The poor guy had lost half his blood supply before he hit the ground. Charley took a step back, praying none of the blood splattered her designer dress. It was strange what entered her mind when her life was under threat.
She stepped over the cooling corpses and locked the door. She knew it wouldn’t last long but it was better than nothing.
“Got any ideas?” she said over her com link with Vinnie.
Charley heard gunshots over the com.
“Vinnie? You OK?”
“A what?” Charley had no idea what Vinnie was talking about but it was probably best that she didn’t. Clutching her pistol, she scrambled into the bedroom and found the closet. She huddled in a dark corner and waited for the inevitable attack.
The penthouse was silent for a full minute. Each second was like a dagger through Charley’s frayed nerves. Her heart lurched when she heard the front entrance shatter from some kind of melee weapon.
“Search every room!” growled a non-human voice. It was a strange accent, filled with clicks and pops.
Charley held her breath, knowing she wouldn’t be able to resist for long. She heard footsteps enter the bedroom and her body tensed for violence. A Night Runner appeared in the wardrobe doorway and she fired at his head. She missed.
Her heart sinking, Charley fired a second time and watched with satisfaction as the blast shattered the man’s knee. The next thing she knew she was being dragged out into the penthouse living area and deposited before two scaly, glistening feet. One of those feet stomped on her blaster and kicked it away.
Charley looked up at a tall bipedal reptile. It was like a salamander in appearance, with a long snout and fiery orange eyes. It carried a heavy particle cannon and its torso was crossed with ammo belts. It wore the same dark blue armor as Fallon’s other guards. This must have been the salukar Vinnie had mentioned. Another race Charley knew nothing about.
The salukar peered at Charley with its weird, laterally closing eyes. In the end, it simply chuckled. The sound send a freezing chill down Charley’s spine.
“Really? This was the slut that did Fallon in?”
The salukar dropped the gun to the floor with a heavy thud. Its scaly foot lashed out at her belly, sending her halfway across the room in extreme pain.
Charley blinked through the agony, trying to focus on the towering salukar as he marched toward her for a second strike. The beast clearly intended to beat her to a pulp. There didn’t seem to be anything personal in the attack - this salukar was a real piece of work. At the last moment Charley tried to stand and defend herself. She’d learned a few moves from her brothers back home. None of that back country shit was going to cut it here against a highly trained salukar killer. The reptile blocked Charley’s feeble attacks and punched her in the stomach. If Charley hadn’t turned at the last moment the blow would’ve landed in the same spot as the first, surely killing her. As it was the blow glanced painfully off the tip of her pelvis, almost cracking it. Charley wheezed in panic as the salukar lifted her like a feather and tossed her against the wall. The worst thing was the laughter of the other thugs in the penthouse as Charley’s vision became blurred and streaky. Charley became incensed by the bleak, careless attitude of the Silent Runners that had so ruthlessly taken over the organized crime in this sector.
She thought of Harry Teks, the devilish, intelligent old pirate who had more class in his little finger than any of these mindless thugs did as a collective.
Heaving with rage, she selected the nearest bandit, removed her right high-heeled shoe, and hurled it at his head. The heel was shaped to a fine point in the modern style, making them incredibly hard to master. That impracticality allowed the heel point to penetrate the man’s skull in the center of his forehead. The unfortunate bandit’s colleagues looked on with bemused shock as he fell forward with a strange wail. Then all eyes returned to Charley, who clutched at her abdomen like she was trying to stop her guts spilling out. Her head rang with pain as she considered trying the same move again. A voice in her head reasonably pointed out that the chances of the same outcome were unlikely.
The salukar chuckled again as he stepped forward. “I’m gonna squeeze your head open and eat from it,” he drooled.
Charley saw her life f
lash before her eyes. At that moment a figure rushed into the penthouse in a dark blur. Charley got a glimpse of Vinnie’s determined dark eyes as he pushed her roughly onto the balcony. She got a vague impression that Vinnie was tethered to the front door handle via a utility cable, then she was being scooped up and lifted over the balcony rail in Vinnie’s arms.
Too frightened to scream, Charley clutched at Vinnie as the pair free-tumbled down the slick pyramid slope, hurtling off the edge of the front facade and dangling ten yards from the garden beds at the front entrance.
Vinnie tried in vain to reach the cable anchor point at the small of his back.
“Can you reach the latch?” he asked irritably.
Charley fumbled with the latch for several pregnant seconds. A number of casino patrons had gathered down below. Charley felt as though enough time had passed for an army to amass underneath them.
Vinnie looked up at her with a sudden thought. “Surely they’d cut the cable?”
Such a thing was easier said than done. This stuff was industrial grade triple thread steel cable. But on cue the tension was released and they fell the rest of the way into a lush garden bed. Charley was left sprawled amongst the ferns but knew instinctively that no bones were broken. Vinnie stood alongside her - he wasn’t hurt either.
“You’re a genius,” Charley gushed, stepping close to her pirate lover.
“All pirates know their ropes and cables,” Vinnie replied, his eyes drinking her in, glad that she was safe.
“Are you gonna stand there all night?” came a gruff voice. Charley saw the bulbous, pig-like mercenary who called himself Gronko hustle down an adjacent boardwalk and spray fire from his plasma rifle into the posse of Silent Runners that emerged from the casino pyramid.
Three fell while the rest scrambled for cover.
“What the fuck?” Charley asked aloud.
“He’s not so bad after all,” Vinnie said, taking her by the arm. “Come in, we gotta get out of here.”
8
“We can’t go back to the villa,” Charley said, following Vinnie into the trees. “They’ll know where we’re staying.”
Vinnie grinned. “Then we need to go where they won’t expect us.”
At that point Charley was just happy to be alive. She stepped out of her single high heel and hared into a copse of thick foliage. Away from the boardwalks the only light was cast by the occasional green lantern. All she saw of Vinnie was the occasional flash. The sound of her footfall seemed loud in the night. The dry leaves were sharp enough, and she shuddered to think what might be lying under them.
“Stay behind me,” she heard Vinnie saying. “There’s a platoon of mercs inbound.”
Charley’s heart went cold. How were they gonna handle a platoon of trained killers? Charley heard a sound some thirty yards to her right. There were definitely men coming from that direction. Gronko’s weapon sizzled through the sultry air. It was somehow reassuring to know the big alien was cutting through the enemy ranks. The harsh reality was that the entire island was run by the Silent Runners and the Pirate Guild needed all the help it could get.
Charley focussed on getting through the jungle undergrowth in one piece. She could feel herself sweating through what was once a designer dress. If only she had a weapon. And where was Vinnie? With rising panic she stopped and peered into the trees. She’d been so preoccupied with the jungle that she hadn’t noticed which path he’d taken. Bursts of fire could be heard up ahead - probably Vinnie. Her heart thumping wildly, Charley picked her way through the trees at a much slower pace. Her vague plan was to evade the approaching mercs and then rejoin Vinnie once they’d passed. It was a fanciful notion but it was all she had. Breathing hard, she crouched under a fern and listened. The men she heard earlier were stomping through the bracken about fifty yards to the east. She could see the beams of light cast by their night scopes. She breathed out in relief, hoping she was safe for the moment.
An object pressed against her neck and for a moment she thought it was a man’s arm. With a sinking feeling she realized it was a snake. A big one. The constricting variety. She barely dared to move a muscle as the thing moved round her neck and slithered across her back. It would run a couple more coils and then begin crushing the life from her. Numb with fear. Charley stumbled through the bracken, knowing she didn’t have much time. She saw a beam of light ahead and made straight for it.
The beam locked on her and she heard a grunt of triumph.
The python closed in on Charley’s neck with steady power. The thing must’ve been longer than five metres the way she was dragging it behind her.
“What the …” muttered the merc. Clearly he’d just seen the python hanging from Charley’s body. She could really feel it pressing against her now, its rippling muscle clamping down on her windpipe. Charley walked straight toward the bandit, who took an involuntary step back.
He raised his rifle in panic.
“No further or I swear I’ll waste you both,” he said.
Charley kept coming and was almost glad when the bandit fired. The pressure at her neck was immense. The shot dissolved an entire midsection of snake. A cloying, burnt flesh smell assailed Charley as the thing released its grip and fell to the ground. For a moment the bandit’s attention was solely on the python.
That was his lethal mistake. Even Charley sensed the snake was no longer a threat. She was now close enough to grab hold of the man’s rifle and pull it hard.
The bandit didn’t let go but fell forward, tripping over the snake. His downward momentum allowed Charley to wrest the gun from his grip. Before he could scramble to his feet she removed his head with a single shot to the base of the skull. She looked at the rifle with relief - this one wasn’t DNA activated. She wondered if the bandits drew upon a shared arsenal. Whatever the case, she now had a weapon and she was damn well gonna use it. She crouched low in the bracken as the python slithered off, probably to die. For the first time that night she felt badass. She saw flashes of plasma fire through the trees and hurried towards it. She came across two men in a glade, firing into a dark wall of jungle. She shot one of them in the back, her blast melting a fair portion of his armor. The bandit turned and fired on her general position, but she had already taken cover behind a gnarled old trunk. More shots erupted from the jungle on the far side. Vinnie. Charley popped off more shots, taking advantage of the bandits’ poor position. Trapped in a pincer attack, they both fell under weight of fire. As she crossed the glade Charley nudged the bodies with her right foot. Dead enough.
“Come on!” Vinnie hissed at her.
Charley followed him through a woodland rife with the croak of frogs and lizards. The terrain opened out into a shallow bog. Charley didn’t relish sinking her feet into the soft, foul-smelling mud but there wasn’t much choice. Up ahead a floodlit villa came into view. There were men patrolling the balconies and stationed on the roof. Vinnie drew Charley alongside him and they both crouched behind a tall bank of reeds.
“Fallon’s villa,” Vinnie explained. “Gronko tells me there’s some good intel in there.”
Charley’s eyes widened. “You mean to tell me that killing Fallon wasn’t enough? The whole island is trying to kill us, Vin!”
Vin shook his head irritably.
“Fallon’s head is one thing, really screwing the Silent Runners is another,” he said.
Charley immediately suspected what the burly pirate was getting at. “Treasure?”
“What else?” came the reply.
Charley had to admit the prospect of killing Fallon and scoring a payload was deeply appealing to her. She guessed she must have pirate blood flowing in her veins.
“And the renki?” she asked.
Vinnie started moving through the swamp in a low crouch. “He’s just a fucking assassin like we thought,” he said dismissively.
Charley scurried low, trying to ignore the mud climbing up her dress - it was already ruined. “Then why was he helping us?”
Vi
nnie threw an amused glance at Charley. “His target was Fallon.”
Charley mulled that over. It seemed Fallon had more than one enemy. And it was heartening to know that she and Vinnie weren’t the only ones prepared to take on the Silent Runner bandit cartel.
Vinnie stopped and beckoned Charley over. “Here, kneel down,” he said quickly. Charley grunted as her partner pushed her down onto all fours. She glared at him as he rested his plasma rifle on her back. A bandit on the roof of the villa was just turning in their direction when Vinnie let off the sweetest shot, necking the man flush in the adam’s apple and sending him off the roof without so much as a yelp. As long as there wasn’t anyone watching on the other side, that was one kill that wouldn’t be noticed in the short term. Vinnie nodded in satisfaction and kept hustling towards the wooden deck that extended from the villa’s back entrance. Charley wondered why the island’s most powerful man would have a villa next to a swamp, but then again it seemed to be in a secluded valley all on its own. There was security to all sides - in theory. Two crazy pirates could never be planned for.
“Vinnie!” Charley called out as a bandit rounded the corner of the villa and lowered his gun at the big pirate. Firing from the hip, she neutralized his firing arm with wet pop. Vinnie followed up with a second, killing blow to the forehead. The pair swept into the lower entertaining area of the villa, surprising two bandits as they chatted in front of a huge lightscreen running an interactive porn fantasy. Charley rushed between two projected legs as they spread wide. She fired into the abyss that opened up and drilled a hole in the back of the closest creep. The second one was thrown back into an enormous, pixelated cleavage as Vinnie popped him with a short, semi-automatic burst of plasma. The man smashed through the glass wall near the front door. The noise attracted two more bandits standing outside.
“Nice gun,” Charley said as they dashed upstairs.
“Yeah, Gronko found it for me,” Vinnie said.
The Pirate Captain (The Space Pirate Chronicles Book 2) Page 4
