“You looking to get high?” asked the man in a loud whisper. “I have the best Dust and Zip in the city.”
Angel stared at the man, wishing he could kill the vermin on the spot. Dust was a synthetic powder that put the user into a weeklong state of euphoria and hallucinatory dreams. It was highly addictive, in some cases making an addict with the first use. Zip was made from a plant from some frontier world eight hundred light years away. It was an interdicted substance, but still found its way into the Core worlds. Zip gave the user amazing energy, and the feeling of invulnerability and omnipotence. It was also highly addictive, and only put the user in the desired state for several hours, after which the addict needed another dose. Sleep was impossible, eating became problematic, and most users died within a month of becoming addicted. Angel didn’t know why anyone would take the drug, but there were plenty of people who would.
That was the problem with modern society, even though so many of the ills of the past had been cured. People no longer wanted for food or shelter, or cheap entertainment. They lived long lives, and could be cured of all known maladies, and most of the unknown ones as well. But many people were on the dole, unfulfilled, something that many people overlooked among the wonders of a society in which every working citizen could be many times more productive than at any time in the past. So there were still thrill seekers, and drugs, and crime for those who wanted more out of life than sitting in their homes all day long dreaming of better things. There was less crime than in the past, but it still existed.
“I’m looking for a man,” said Angel, flashing a data chip that was encoded with over a thousand Imperials. They were legitimate currency, untraceable, used when people wanted to buy and sell things and not have an official record of the transaction. Even the Imperial Government dealt in them, since it was always useful to be able to get things without anyone being the wiser.
“I took you as someone who would want a woman,” said the Dealer, who it seemed was also a pimp.
“The man’s name is Harold Devries,” said Angel, his tone of voice indicating that he was not in the mood for banter. “I was told I could find him here.”
The Dealer stared at him for a moment, as if deciding what to do, then nodded. “Wait here,” he said, then turned and walked away, going to a table where four bored looking men sat. He got into an animated conversation with one of the men, and Angel focused in on the conversation with the pickup built into the armor he wore under his clothes. The table had a security field around it, protecting the people from being overheard. It was a good one, but not good enough to spoof his systems.
“I don’t know who he is,” said the Dealer. “But he was asking for you by name.”
“I don’t like the looks of him,” said one of the men at the table. “He looks like the law.”
“Go tell him you don’t know where I am,” said one of the men, identifying himself to Angel as his target. “Give him this address, and tell him that I will meet him there.”
And I will be met by a dozen of his boys and made to disappear, thought Angel, putting his glass on the counter and getting off the stool. He walked to where the four men sat, aware of their stares the entire way.
“What the hell?” asked one of the men. Two of them reached hands under coats, and Angel was sure they had the grips of pistols in those mitts.
“I mean no trouble,” said Angel, holding up his hands. He hoped the men had enough sense to not shoot him in front of witnesses, but in this environment that might not be a given. People at other tables started to slide their chairs, probably to remove themselves from the line of fire. If I have to I can still take them out. But dammit, I didn’t come here to kill some hoods for no return.
“What the hell do you mean?” asked the only other man at the table who had spoken.
“I need to talk with Harold,” he said, looking directly at the named man so Devries would know that Angel recognized him. “I can make it worth your while.” As he said that he moved the fingers of his right hand slowly and a data chip appeared there as if by magic. It was a little trick he had learned in the Fleet, good for winning drinks. The chip was encoded with a hundred thousand Imperials, enough to entice even a mid-level hood.
Devries motioned to the Dealer, who nodded and moved off. Angel realized that was more trouble, but he would have to deal with it.
“Well, let’s step into my office,” said Devries, pushing back his chair and getting up, the other men following suit.
Angel nodded and followed Devries and one of his men, the other two falling in behind. They went through the curtained door, into the back of the bar, where the smell and sounds of sex permeated the air. They continued through to a solid alloy door. Angel had no map of this place, is was on none of the city databases, but his sensors told him there was a long narrow open space behind the door, probably an alley.
Devries opened the door and went through with his lieutenant, while one of the following men put a hand on Angels back and pushed him through. The Assassin didn’t resist. It suited his purposes to go into the alley. But he knew he had to be careful from this point on.
The alley was dark, but to Angel’s enhanced eyes it was like bright twilight. He could see the other men waiting in what they must have thought were shadows, two on each end of the alley. Devries turned toward him while the other three formed a circle around him, surrounding him to prevent escape.
“And just what the hell can I do for you?” asked Devries. The men around him laughed, and Angel was sure that this meeting was not going to end well for someone.
“I understand you did some work for some people. Involving the use of some muscle to acquire some specific items.”
“Who sent you?” growled Devries.
“I’m here on my own,” said Angel. “This is a personal matter.”
“I don’t quite believe that,” said Devries with a grin. “Take him.”
The other three men started to move while Devries reached into his jacket to pull a weapon. The men must have thought they could surprise and overpower the Assassin. Why not, since they were used to dealing with the scared and the weak.
As soon as the words left the crime boss’ mouth Angel began to move, his body going into the fugue state of the enhanced. Everything around him seemed to slow to a crawl, while to his sensibilities he was still moving at normal speed. To the criminals attacking him it seemed as if he was moving in a blur, three times the speed of a normal human.
Angel grabbed the first hand to reach for him, grabbing the wrist and twisting, feeling satisfaction as he felt the bones snap. The man opened his mouth in a scream, but Angel was already moving to deal with the second man, planting a powerful side kick into his solar plexus, doubling him over and flinging him away. A spin on his foot and he was bringing a fist into the throat of the third man, crushing his larynx and sending him to his knees, choking.
Devries had pulled his pistol by this time, an illegal high powered laser, a military weapon forbidden to civilians on the core worlds. He had pulled the trigger before lining it up, meaning to sweep it through Angel like an infinite sword. The beam may have moved at the speed of light, but the arm of the man wielding it did not. Angel ducked and blocked at the same time, pushing the man back, then pulling a hard uppercut into the jaw of the boss. Devries fell onto his back, out.
Muscle Number One tried to hit Angel with his good hand while his other flopped on the end of his arm. Angel gave him another broken limb for his trouble, this time at the forearm, then kicked the hood in the groin, doubling him over.
He hit the second man, the one he had side kicked, now stumbling toward him with a hand on his side, in the head with a spinning backhand, sending him off his feet and out of the conscious world. Man three was on his knees, still choking, now spitting up blood.
The other men came out of the shadows, weapons in hand. None had lasers, and he made all the guns out to be magrails, projectile weapons that could send a round through him at three
thousand meters a second. The two to one side were still raising the weapons, and Angel decided they would be first, since he was already turned their way. He lowered his head at the same time that he raised his weapon, not giving the people behind him a shot at the back of his head.
The particle weapon hummed in his hand, sending an angry red beam at a sizable fraction of the speed of light into the body of the man on the left. Red steam spurted into the air as a good sized chunk of the man’s torso disappeared, the fast moving particles turning their kinetic energy into heat as they burned into the hood’s body. A fast sweep and the beam struck the side of the next man’s neck and then up into his head. That body part disappeared into steam and exploding brain matter as the skull blew out from the pressure.
Something struck Angel hard in the back, and he grunted from the impact. One of the hoods had shot him in the back, but the thin mesh armor under his clothing had stopped it, not without some of the pain of the impact coming through. Angel ducked, turned and rolled as more rounds struck his body. He came around in a prone position, firing his pistol as soon as it lined up on the first target that came into sight, sending another mutilated body to the ground. A round hit the pavement less than five centimeters from Angel’s head, and he quickly took care of that problem before it became too much of a hindrance.
Devries was coming to when Angel walked over to him, his eyes still unfocused. Angel was sure the man had a concussion, and it would take some minutes before internal nanites repaired the damage. The Assassin made sure his three partners were done for, sending a short burst of protons into each. The pistol was too hot to reholster, so he put it down on the ground for a moment while he removed an injector from his coat.
“Who the hell are you?” mumbled Devries, his eyes still unfocused.
“Your worst nightmare,” said Angel. “Just know that you tried to take out the Angel of Death, and your people paid the price.”
Devries eyes now showed panic as he realized who he faced, a legend, and like most legends it was something he hadn’t really believed in until his face was rubbed in it. “What do you want?” he stammered.
“I want some information,” said Angel, putting the injector against the man’s neck. “And since you decided not to do it the easy way, that leaves the hard way.” Angel activated the injector and sent the drug through the skin of the man, sending him back into the darkness. He hefted the crime boss over a shoulder and jogged toward the end of the alley. He would need a place to work on the man to get what he wanted, and to make sure he got all that he wanted.
Chapter Six
When confronted with two alternatives, life and death, one is to choose death without hesitation. Yamamoto Tsunetomo
IMPERIAL CORE SPACE. DECEMBER 24TH, 1002. D-8.
“They’re hailing us, my Lord,” said the human Captain, Tom Jasper, turning toward his Ca’cadasan overlord.
The light cruiser had approached from the edge of detection range, speeding in to intercept and matching course and velocity with the ease of a predator. They had not contacted the freighter during the approach, had made no demands for the ship to decelerate or alter course. The bridge crew had watched nervously as the warship moved from the sensor detection and into visual, then moved into the course that left them apparently motionless in relation to the freighter that was moving at point eight five light in hyper VI.
“Of course they are,” said the large Cacada male. “Answer them. You know the procedure.”
The Captain nodded, turning back to the holo that showed the enemy ship, matched to their velocity and seemingly hanging fifty kilometers off the port bow. The laser rings of the light cruiser were illuminated. They were fully charged, ready for action. He was sure the same was true of their particle beams. The ship was, after all, patrolling the space at the heart of the human Empire. Laughing Troll was only seven days from the cluster of stars the humans termed the Supersystem, and it had been thought that the searches would be more intense the closer they got. Still, it was hoped that they would be able to pass, but this ship looked ready for a battle.
“This is the registered freighter Laughing Troll,” said the Captain, sending his information over on the same transmission. “We are empty, but seeking cargo in the Capital System.”
“Stand by,” came the voice of the human commander. The other ship had not established visual, also a bad sign.
“Perhaps you and the other males should prepare to hide,” he told the Overlord.
“Not yet. It will take them at least ten minutes to launch a shuttle and board us. We have plenty of time to work with.”
Suddenly the nose of a shuttle poked over the top of the cruiser, launched from the other side of the ship where the freighter didn’t have a view. It banked quickly and headed for the freighter, its nose laser glowing with power.
“Laughing Troll. Your registry does not match what we have on file. Stand by to be boarded. Do nothing. If you make any hostile moves, or attempt to avoid boarding, you will be destroyed.”
Which means if we try to do anything to their shuttle, thought the Captain. The shuttle approached quickly, giving them little time to react. That it was hyper capable was obvious from its leaving the hyperfield of its mother ship and heading toward the other large ship in the tableau.
“They are suspicious,” said the male, crossing both pairs of arms over his chest. “But not sure. And they do not know what they have caught.”
The freighter outmassed the cruiser by a factor of ten, though in most cases the armor and weaponry of the cruiser would be more than a match for any cargo ship. When Laughing Troll had her complete weapons package deployed she would be the superior of the cruiser, but most of her weapons were still on the other side of the wormhole. Her hull was tougher than it looked, much tougher than the ship facing them, more in the class of a heavy cruiser. Her hidden electromag projectors could erect a battle cruiser class field, and could run up that barrier in an instant.
“What are your orders, my Lord?”
The male looked over a couple of holos, making the decision on whether to continue to play dumb or to strike. If they were discovered before they struck, the job would become much more difficult. Fortunately, the main cargo hatch was already oriented toward the cruiser. Of course, if the cruiser had a wormhole com, their command would already know what they had encountered, and this mission might be over before it truly began. That was less than likely this deep into Imperial territory, but not impossible.
“Order a missile through the wormhole, to enter in twenty seconds. Then start to open the cargo hatch.”
Jasper nodded, then looked at his crew members and gave them another head nod. He looked back at the holo that showed the enemy ship, waiting for their reaction to the cargo hatch starting to move.
“Laughing Troll. Why is your cargo hatch moving?”
“We thought you might want to inspect our hold while your shuttle is out in space. It would save us time.”
“Close your hatch, now. You will make no move until you are told. Do you understand, Laughing Troll?”
“We understand, cruiser.”
Of course the Captain ordered no such thing, and the hatch continued to slowly open. The Captain cringed as he waited for the cruiser to make the next move. He didn’t think a couple of blasts of laser energy would hurt them too badly, but things could happen. And serious damage might be hard to restore in the time they had. Finally, the Captain nodded at his Tactical Officer and the hatch froze, still open.
“Laughing Troll. You are ordered to close your hatch, now. Failure to comply immediately will result in your ship being fired upon.”
“Something is wrong with the hatch mechanism, cruiser. Give us a moment. Give us…”
The missile came flying out of the wormhole from the other side, moving at point zero zero two light. Not fast in the terms of missile warfare, its target was close, the weapon covered the hundred kilometers in less than a thousandth of a second, before even th
e computer system on the enemy ship could take any kind of effective reaction. The grabber units started to move it, laser batteries began to lock on, but the capital ship missile struck the cruiser before anything could be done besides those initial reactions. One laser ring got off a shot that missed, and then there was no time to adjust as the missile hit with enough kinetic energy to slam the ship out of alignment. An instant later the warhead detonated, a gigaton of force that slammed into the bow of the cruiser, vaporizing a hundred meters of length and sending the ship into a heavy tumble. The freighter’s lasers, ten units with the power of battlecruiser rings, tore into the ship, several striking the ruined bow and blasting into the vessel. Moments later antimatter breached, and the ship went up in a flare of plasma.
The shuttle started firing, its small nose laser tearing shallow runnels down the hull of the Q-ship. Laughing Troll returned fire, putting a powerful beam into the thin hull of the shuttle near its engineering section. Another quick blast from one of the freighter’s laser domes and the shuttle was disabled.
“Launch a shuttle and bring that crew aboard,” said the Overlord in a growling voice.
“They’re starting to evade, my Lord,” called out the Tactical Officer, looking past the Captain to the Cacada male they all knew was the true authority.
The shuttle was obviously hyper capable, and while it might not have the range to reach another Imperial ship, it might.
“Burn off their grabbers, but make sure that you do not destroy their hyperdrive. I want that ship.”
Laughing Troll’s advanced laser system took out the grabbers without a problem, while the freighter launched its own hyper capable shuttle to match velocities, grapple, and drag the enemy craft into the cargo hold. From there they pushed the shuttle through the wormhole gate into the Ca’cadasan system containing the other end of the tunnel. The males there would finish the capture of the crew and conduct the interrogation.
“Orders, my Lord?” asked the Captain.
Exodus: Empires at War: Book 11: Day of Infamy (Exodus: Empires at War.) Page 7
