Man-Kzin Wars XII
Page 30
I screamed and leaped again, my spear catching him in the chest, its point digging into his ribs. I braced myself against the edge of the airlock and forced it forward as he struggled to free his weapon arm, his face contorted in exertion and pain. He got his hand free and fired again. I would have died then, but Bodyguard managed to bring a paw up and over and smacked the weapon even as Jameson pulled the trigger. The round zwwipped past and pain seared my shoulder, then a half second later the gyrojet sailed over my head. The kill rage swept over me and I shoved hard on the spear. From someplace far away I heard a bloodcurdling scream and realized it was my own voice. Something gave way with a nasty crunching sound and the shaft lurched forward into Jameson's chest. He looked at me with something close to surprise, his once-distinguished features covered in sprayed blood. I didn't wait to watch him die, I let go of the spear and rolled to take on the other guard.
There was another zzzwwwipp and I ducked reflexively. I saw the guard's chest explode. Opal held the gyrojet leveled, now covering the guard, but she needn't have bothered. Bodyguard had ripped his throat out in his first attack.
I turned to the kzin. Incredibly he was still breathing, but he wouldn't be for long. There was fur and bone spattered everywhere. His spinal column had been blown out and his legs and lower body sagged uselessly.
"Hang on. We'll get you to an autodoc."
He looked up at me with big green eyes. I hadn't noticed their color before, and I saw in them the certainty of his own death. "Honor is satisfied," he said, his breath rasping. "You fought well, Captain Thurmond."
I wanted to say something, do something but there was nothing that could be done, and he closed his eyes and died right there. I knew in that moment it had been no accident that he'd knocked me out of the way as Reston Jameson fired. He owed me honor debt, for his own accusation that I had killed Opal, and he had repaid it in full.
Honor is satisfied. I found myself shaking, light-headed and nauseous at once.
"We have to get out of here." Opal brought me back to the here-and-now.
I looked up. Three men and a kzin were dead and there was blood everywhere. I was soaked in it myself, and I'd just killed the most powerful man in the Belt. It was definitely not a good time to be me.
"There's a ship here somewhere. I saw the shiplock."
"Reston's courier. I know where it is."
We went straight to the docking bay through the dimly lit tunnels, once having to slip past a lit office where someone was working late on some Consortium project which I had probably just rendered irrelevant by killing Jameson. The ship lock was deserted. Jameson's ship was a converted Hawk-class courier, immaculately maintained, with Lightning scribed on her bow above her registration numbers. Inside she was appointed to a level that went beyond luxury into hubris. With hands both bloody and trembling I preflighted her. I did it in record time; the bloodbath in the airlock might be discovered at any moment, and I wanted to be well away from Ceres when that happened, preferably well away from Sol System. The lock pumped down while I ran the checklist, and by the time I was done the doors were sliding open.
I lifted out and called departure control, trying to keep my voice level. They laconically granted me boost clearance. I wasted no time pivoting the thrusters and shoving the throttles forward. Lightning responded with smooth, even power, and I realized then that I was abandoning Elektra. I would never be back to Ceres now; I was a marked man. Elektra would sit in the docking bay until she was sold to cover my debts. My future, whatever it was, lay in the new colonies, worlds where a good pilot with a good ship counted for more than Sol System justice. That hurt. A singleship pilot and his ship have a bond, an understanding, a kind of love that transcends the gap between man and machine. You can't understand that if you haven't felt it. Elektra was alive to me, and abandoning her hurt. I took a deep breath, punched in a course for the singularity's edge, and engaged it. The ship surged as the starfield tilted and then we were on our way. I had no other option, and at that I was paying less for my freedom than Bodyguard had. Sometimes being an independent has its downsides.
Opal Stone came into the cockpit. She'd cleaned herself up, replaced her blood soaked clothing with a utilitarian jumpsuit. She looked tired but something had changed, a tension had left her face, and I realized that it had always been there.
"Let me look at that." She took the cockpit medpack from its clips and fussed over my wounded shoulder with saline and sterile swabs and sprayskin. I'd forgotten all about it. It wasn't bad, but it began to throb painfully as the adrenaline wore off.
She was very beautiful. I let her keep fussing, watching the eternal stars. The future was out there.
THE END